By Dorrothy Moyo| Presidential Advisor Chris Mutsvangwa has said if the opposition have problems with military presence in rural areas, they should take up arms.

Speaking during a topic discussion titled ‘Making Elections Make Sense’ by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) on Thursday, Mutsvangwa battled continuous jeering by the audience as he defended the presence of military personnel in rural communities.

The Opposition says the upcoming elections will not be free, fair and credible with over 5000 military men said to be already terrorising villagers on voting against Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ZANU PF party.

Mutsvangwa’s response to this was “if you have any issues with the military and you hate them so much, I have got one dictum for you – we had a military which we hated as young people; it was called the Rhodesian Army…

“We decided that we didn’t want it, but we could not deal with that army on the Zimbabwean soil, we had to go into exile as young people to Romania, Russia, China, Yugoslavia and Cuba, trained there and came back and fought it (Rhodesian army.”

“If you have got issues with the Zimbabwean army, if you have issues with the Zimbabwean State, that’s how we removed it (Rhodesian Army), from power.”“

He ended his statement by saying, “So stop bringing it (army) into the electoral playing field.”