Exiled former Higher Education Minister Jonathan Moyo says the number of soldiers embedded “in every street and village in Zimbabwe” now stands at 5 000 and had asked people to worry more about this than the trip of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s special advisor Chris Mutsvangwa and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chair Priscillah Chigumba to Russia to observe elections in that country.
One of Zimbabwe’s opposition parties has voiced concern over Chigumba’s joining the trip arguing that this compromises her independence.
Moyo tweeted: “Worry more & do something urgent about the over 5,000 soldiers that have been embedded in every street & village in Zimbabwe to rig the #2018Election; than this picture of bemused & clueless observers of the just ended Russian election; out in the cold with their paraffin-scarf!”
Initially Moyo said there were 2 000 soldiers embedded in the community to help rig the elections.
National People’s Party leader Joice Mujuru said Mnangagwa had deployed 3 000 to campaign for his party.
Binga North legislator Prince Dubeko Sibanda urged the government to withdraw these soldiers threatening to expose them to election observers if they were not.
Sibanda, however, said that these soldiers were deployed during the Robert Mugabe era and he had raised the issue with then Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi which probably explains why Jonathan Moyo knows about them.
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