ZIMBABWE: President Robert Mugabe hit the hustings around Harare yesterday, promising to deliver a knockout blow to the popular opposition candidate, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, in Zimbabwe's closest presidential election.
After 22 years in power, Mr Mugabe takes on Mr Tsvangirai in a vote on Saturday and Sunday that the opposition says will not be free and fair.
Officials have not released key details such as the number of registered voters and polling stations, fuelling fears that Mr Mugabe is trying to fix the election.
The election campaign is the closest and most bitter since independence from Britain in 1980.
"This fist is 78 years old and has 78 horsepower that could send Mr Tsvangirai to the ground if we were to get into the ring," Mr Mugabe told a rally of his ruling Zanu-PF.
In the town of Gokwe, Mr Mugabe said Zanu-PF's complacency had allowed Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change to make big gains in the parliamentary elections in 2000.
"But now we are wide awake. We won't let MDC win in the presidential election," he said in a speech quoted by the state-owned Herald newspaper.
Mr Mugabe addressed at least three provincial rallies yesterday.
Mr Tsvangirai has repeatedly urged his supporters to flood the polls, saying a large turnout would make it difficult for Zanu-PF to fix the election.
Voter turnout in the 2000 poll was 48.2 per cent of the 5.3 million eligible voters.
The only way Mr Mugabe can win the election is to steal it and if he does the opposition will challenge the result in court, a senior opposition official said yesterday.
The MDC legal affairs secretary, Mr David Coltart, said Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party had waged a campaign of terror against his main rival.
"Despite all of these obstacles, despite the fact that this is not going to be a free and fair election we are still confident that we can win," he said. "The only way that Robert Mugabe can win this election is if he steals it," Mr Coltart said.
The independent Daily News carried a report yesterday that soldiers and police have been ordered to cast their postal or absentee ballots for President Mugabe against their will.
The paper, which is openly sympathetic to the MDC, said several soldiers and police officers told it they had been ordered to vote for Mr Mugabe in the presence of their superiors.
Zimbabwe's umbrella trade union body said the leader of one of its affiliate unions remained missing after being abducted three three weeks ago.
Mr Lovemore Matongo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, said Mr Ephraim Tapa, head of the Civil Service Employees' Association, and his wife, Ms Faith Mukukwa, were abducted on February 16th in the north-east rural area of Mutoko.
Mr Matongo complained about the slow progress of police investigations into Mr Tapa's disappearance.
"To date there has not been any feedback from the investigating authorities," he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Mugabe has thanked his African allies for their support at this week's Commonwealth summit.
"We praise those countries attending the Commonwealth meeting and urge them to remain united," he told the campaign rally in Gokwe.
African countries led by Nigeria and South Africa rallied around Zimbabwe in the face of a drive by Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand to sanction Harare for political violence ahead of the election.
The Commonwealth leaders decided to allow a panel of three leaders - Nigerian, South African and Australian - to decide what to do in the light of a Commonwealth observers' report after the elections.
Mr Mugabe is accused by Britain, the EU, the US and human rights organisations of using autocratic means to ensure his re-election, and of plunging the country into violence, with at least 31 people killed since the start of the year.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the All African Conference of Churches said yesterday they would send a joint 86-member team to observe the elections at the invitation of the government.
"We are going to Zimbabwe . . . to be in solidarity with the churches and the people of Zimbabwe, to assess with them the whole process of the elections," said the Rev Melaku Kifle of the WCC.