Zimbabwe’s “unity government” should carry out reforms to ensure that state security forces conduct themselves in a non-partisan and professional manner before the country holds national elections in 2013, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Wednesday.

Zimbabwe’s military intelligence agencies, the Military Intelligence Directorate (MID) and Military Intelligence Unit (MIU), are courting Russian expertise and arms, as a hardline confederacy of State security generals is all but preparing to install its own cherry-picked successor to replace President Robert Mugabe, by as early as 2014.

The new Constitution of Zimbabwe prohibits the security forces from engaging in partisan conduct, a development that could rein in the very institutions whose leaders have, on numerous occasions, threatened to reject any electoral outcome in which Mugabe loses.

HARARE – Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says he does not hold a personal grudge against security service chiefs but wants them to respect civilian authority and to discharge their duties professionally in a non-partisan manner.

ZAPU President Dumiso Dabengwa warned on Friday that the armed forces chiefs remain a potential source of instability, which could still throw Zimbabwe and the region into chaos after the elections. Dabengwa said it is a very bad precedent for any country.

It is unacceptable in a democracy to politicise the military, as it is to militarise political and civilian affairs and institutions. While the political leadership of the military is overtly partisan towards ZANU-PF, many soldiers in the rank and file are professional.

Three days after MDC-T youth leader Solomon Madzore was arrested for allegedly likening President Mugabe to a ‘limping donkey’ Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander General Constantine Chiwenga called Prime Minister Tsvangirai a ‘psychiatric patient’.

HARARE – Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) commander, General Constantine Chiwenga is now all but de facto Head of State, after reportedly usurping most of President Robert Mugabe’s executive powers, through the country’s military industrial complex.

HARARE — Zimbabwe’s defence chief and President Robert Mugabe’s ally has vowed not to meet with the country’s prime minister amid a row over proposed changes in the security sector, state media reported on Sunday.