Dar Es Salaam — The chief of the Tanzanian army Thursday appealed for calm and restraint when the country holds national polls Sunday.

Gen. Robert Mboma told 100 military personnel at Migombani, on Zanzibar Island, to be prepared to stamp out any troublemakers during the second multiparty elections after those of 1995.

The island, long considered a trouble spot by the United Republic of Tanzania, has witnessed a series of violent acts in the run-up to the elections.

The United Nations has asked its staff to keep off the Indian Ocean island until further notice. Britain too has asked its nationals to avoid the island, telling those who must travel there to remain vigilant for possible trouble.

At least five people, all members of the Civic United Front or CUF, the country's largest opposition party, sustained bullet injuries during the campaigning.

In August, the union government upgraded its firepower there and sent in over 2,500 soldiers and policemen amid protests and much clamouring from opposition politicians, who strongly criticised the role of the police in supervising campaign rallies in Zanzibar.

According to a local network of NGOs monitoring the elections, TEMCO, the police had not treated all parties equally and had failed to create the impression that they were neutral law enforcers.

Mboma, whose address was accentuated by a parading of military vehicles on Zanzibar's streets, said civilians should not feel intimidated by the heavy presence of soldiers.

His predicted that the elections would pass peacefully, given the "prevailing calm circumstances across the nation."

President Benjamin Mkapa, running for a second-term as head of the Union Government, faces no serious challenge.

However, observers expect a tough tussle in Zanzibar between Amani Karume and Seif Sharrif Hamad of CUF, whose party claimed it was robbed of victory by the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party in 1995.

CUF refused to concede defeat and refused to send its elected members of parliament to the Zanzibar House of Representatives.