President Mugabe’s lawless militias crossed a psychological boundary last week as they extended their violence and “reeducation” campaign from the poor townships into the well-off suburbs.

On Friday night a mob of about 20 youths burst through the gate of the Blue Kerry home for the elderly, in Harare’s upmarket Chisipite area, brandishing sticks and chanting slogans for the ruling Zanu (PF) party. “They were looking for a lawyer who stays here,” an 80-year-old resident said. “When they found he wasn’t here, one of them grabbed me through the wrought-iron gate I was watching them through but I pulled free. They tried to smash the gate but they failed.

“So they went on and found the administrator in his flat. They sjam-boked [whipped] him and beat him across the head. He was badly hurt. He’s gone into hiding now.”

The mobs have been leaping over the high walls meant to keep long-term white residents and the black business executives and professionals who became affluent more recently safe. They have been dragging domestic employees out of their quarters to pungwes, meetings where they are made to chant slogans in front of a huge bonfire and sing in praise of Mr Mugabe all night.

Having terrorised great swaths of the country’s rural areas with murder, assault, arson and starvation for having “voted wrongly” in the March 29 elections, the Joint Operations Command – the 200-odd top security officers directing Mr Mugabe’s political survival strategy – have moved into cities and towns, where support for Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has hitherto been left alone.

“It’s a nasty situation,” said the 80-year-old care home resident. “We called the police. They came but said they were not allowed to arrest them.”

So far it is not clear if there is more than one gang in Harare’s northern suburbs. But the capital’s overcrowded and poor townships have had at least one Zanu (PF) group in their neighbourhoods for more than a month, wreaking havoc. Theresa, a middle-aged housewife from Epworth, a sprawling squatter town on Harare’s southern outskirts, said: “They forced me to come to a meeting last week. We had to sing all night.

“They made us line up and each one had to confess that we had voted for MDC. They took our names. Many were beaten, if they confessed the truth or not. Then after that we had to buy T-shirts with Mugabe’s face and a Zanu (PF) membership card. They hold these meetings every night. And every night there are long, long queues to confess.”

Zanu (PF)’s strategy for the run-off election on June 27 makes a mockery of assurances to voters that the ballot will be secret. The results in each polling station are fixed outside the building for public inspection – and the local Zanu (PF) militia leaders have a copy of the electoral roll for the area.

Trevor, a university student living in Mbare township, said: “In the election in March, Zanu (PF) got very few votes. So it is easy for Zanu to know who are their members in the area. So they know the rest of the people on the roll voted for the MDC. They are saying if Mugabe loses again, they are going to deal with us.”

The sense of fear around the country will have been reinforced sharply by Mr Mugabe’s avowal at the weekend that “we are prepared to fight for our country and go to war for it”, rather than let the MDC win.

At the weekend the advance party of the Pan-African Parliament’s observer contingent concluded that “clearly the situation is not conducive for free and fair elections”.

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