THERE is a suffocating air of desperation in Zanu PF. The language used in defence of efforts to cripple the 2013 Constitution has become shrill, toxic and abusive.
These are the signs of a regime with no reasonable or substantive argument for amending a Constitution adopted by the majority through a referendum.
The violence against citizens, the State-sponsored terror and the intimidation at public hearings all point to acute desperation.
There is no attempt to persuade, let alone listen to dissenting voices. Minds were made up long ago in government circles because the agenda is simple: extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s political tenure and allow the circle around him to pick his successor. Miss that, and you miss everything.
Let me emphasise this: the Constitution is not a piece of paper for lawyers to play games with. It is the rope we hold on to in stormy weather — the promise that no matter who rules, certain things cannot be touched. Cut that rope and we all drown.
Constitutional Amendment No 3 Bill — CAB3 — is the knife being sharpened to cut it.
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Parliament is “consulting” the public until May 17, 2026, but this is no consultation. It is a perfunctory exercise designed to legitimise a constitutional coup.
The government has dispatched its wordsmiths — Jonathan Moyo, George Charamba, Ziyambi Ziyambi, Nick Mangwana and Temba Mliswa — to dress this Bill in the robes of “modernisation”, “refinement” and “a sovereign matter for Zimbabweans”. When a government hires a chorus of discredited apologists to convince you that something good is being done for you, something else is usually being done to you.
Here are six reasons CAB3 must never see the light of day.
- It steals your vote
Under the 2013 Constitution, you choose the President. CAB3 hands that choice to Members of Parliament — most of whom you barely know, all of whom answer to a party whip and some of whom can be bought for the price of a cheap Toyota.
Jonathan Moyo tells us section 95(2)(b) “does one thing only — it adjusts the length of the democratic electoral cycle.” George Charamba invokes Westminster and reminds us that Canaan Banana was not directly elected.
Both arguments are dishonest.
The British Prime Minister answers to a Parliament restrained by an independent Judiciary, a free Press and a loyal opposition capable of toppling the government tomorrow morning. None of those preconditions exist here. To compare Westminster to a Parliament dominated by Zanu PF’s two-thirds majority — assembled through elections the world has repeatedly questioned — is to compare a working brake to a painted picture of a brake.
And Canaan Banana? He occupied a ceremonial office. Today’s President commands the army, the Judiciary, the security services and the national budget. To dilute that mandate is not history. It is a leap into something darker.
Did we not fight Ian Smith — and shed blood — for one man, one vote? Did more than three million Zimbabweans not endorse the 2013 Constitution in a referendum? CAB3 quietly takes that vote back.
The presidency ceases to be an office of the people and becomes the trophy of cartels and a parliamentary elite.
- It extends rule by stealth
CAB3 stretches the terms of the President, Parliament and councils from five years to seven — two extra years for the same people without you casting another ballot.
The transitional provisions explicitly state that the new term applies to the current President, Senate and National Assembly — notwithstanding section 328(7), which prohibits retroactive amendment of term limits.
Read that again.
The Bill does not merely change the rules going forward. It changes them for the man currently holding the whistle: Mnangagwa.
Apologists claim section 328(7) is itself a firewall against incumbents benefiting. Sophistry. If it were truly a firewall, the transitional provisions would not need the phrase “notwithstanding section 328(7).”
That single phrase tells you everything. The drafters knew the barrier existed and deliberately wrote a clause to climb over it.
Lawyers warn that if the Bill becomes law before September 2026, the presidential clock could be reset and the incumbent kept in office until 2030 — possibly beyond.
This is not reform. It is tenure dressed in legal robes.
Mnangagwa once described himself as “a constitutionalist” who would not exceed two five-year terms. CAB3 turns that pledge into a written falsehood.
- It packs the Senate with presidential appointees
CAB3 enlarges the Senate from 80 to 90 seats and gives the President power to appoint 10 additional senators directly.
Add the 18 traditional leaders whose administrative survival depends on executive favour, and the Senate ceases to be a house of review. It becomes a firewall of patronage.
Now connect this to Reason One.
The same Parliament that will elect the President is being stuffed with senators appointed by the President. The man being chosen has appointed a significant number of the people doing the choosing.
That is not a republic.
That is a pyramid scheme with a constitutional certificate.
- It dismantles the institutions designed to protect you
Buried within CAB3’s 21 clauses is a quiet demolition of constitutional watchdogs.
The Zimbabwe Gender Commission is abolished outright. The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission — established to address Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina and decades of political violence — is repealed. The voters’ roll is removed from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and handed to the Registrar-General, who reports to the Executive. Judicial appointments are stripped of public interviews, allowing the President to appoint judges through consultation alone.
Charamba calls this “refining specific provisions.”
It is not refinement. It is the unscrewing of every smoke alarm in the building before a fire starts.
A confident government strengthens watchdogs. It does not abolish them.
CAB3 is a confession that the second republic’s reforms were never serious.
- It will scare investment away — and your job with it
Every business — from the vendor in Mbare to the manufacturer in Bulawayo — depends on three things: the rule of law, enforceable contracts and a predictable transfer of power.
CAB3 weakens all three.
Investors looking at a country that repeatedly tears up its own Constitution do not see opportunity. They see risk.
Risk drives capital away. Capital flight tightens the foreign currency squeeze. Exchange rates run wild. Prices climb. Jobs disappear. The fuel pump becomes a tax collector. The bread shelf becomes a luxury aisle.
The Vision 2030 they invoke has already delivered inflation that is officially low and unofficially everywhere, a currency on its third name, and a diaspora remitting US$2,4 billion annually not because Zimbabwe is succeeding, but because too many Zimbabweans are succeeding elsewhere.
You do not stabilise an economy by destabilising the Constitution.
You do not attract investment by manufacturing political risk.
- It is the wrong cure from the wrong doctor
CAB3 — 21 clauses of constitutional surgery — is prescribed by an administration that has spent nine years presiding over the disease.
Our problem is not that the President is elected by the people instead of by Parliament. Our problem is corruption.
Our problem is not five-year terms. Our problem is impunity.
Our problem is not “election-related toxicity.” Our problem is electoral malpractice, intimidation and a security architecture that treats opposition as an enemy.
Our problem is not that the Senate is too small. Our problem is that institutions of accountability are too weak.
Every clause in CAB3 treats symptoms while leaving the disease untouched. Several clauses deepen the disease itself.
This is not constitutional renewal.
It is cosmetic surgery on a patient bleeding internally.
The hearings tell the rest of the story.
Lawyer Doug Coltart slapped on camera. Journalists ordered to delete footage. Whip-wielding vetters stationed at the door deciding who may speak. Buses ferrying “supporters” from outside the district. Professor Lovemore Madhuku assaulted. Activists abducted. Opposition figures and reporters arrested for daring to disagree.
That is not consultation.
That is intimidation in broad daylight.
You do not need to read the Bill to understand the country it intends to create. You only need to look at the men with whips at the door.
When Charamba calls this “a sovereign matter”, he is correct in only one sense: only Zimbabweans can stop it.
Sovereignty resides in the people, not in those temporarily occupying the offices of the people.
The framers of the 2013 Constitution understood this.
CAB3’s architects clearly do not.
Nation-building is the aim
Nation-building is not slogans on billboards. It is the slow, daily work of building trust — between citizens, between government and the governed, between today’s rulers and tomorrow’s.
The glue is the rule of law and a Constitution nobody is permitted to bend for personal convenience.
When that glue dissolves, everything dissolves with it.
The teacher’s salary loses value. The farmer cannot plan. The graduate boards a bus to Beitbridge. The diaspora remits money but stops returning home.
Zimbabwe becomes a transit lounge.
The 2013 Constitution is progressive. It threatens only those who lack confidence in winning free and fair elections.
That CAB3’s architects seek to tear it down is not a sign of strength.
It is an admission of weakness — a failed administration attempting to cure its failures by changing the rules of the game.
A call to action
Six things. Pick at least one. Every Zimbabwean must do at least one.
First: Reject CAB3 in writing before May 17, 2026. Submit your objection to the Clerk of Parliament. It is free, legal and protected under section 328(4). I have drafted templates for individuals, organisations and the diaspora. Download them from AllThingsZimbabwe.Substack.com. Use them. Make your MP account for their vote.
Second: Join the Constitutional Defence Compact. Civic groups, churches, war veterans, the Law Society, business chambers and trade unions must unite around one simple platform: defend the 2013 Constitution without amendment.
Third: Business must find its voice. Silence is complicity. History remembers who stood up and who looked away.
Fourth: The church must move beyond statements to co-ordinated civic action. Written submissions in every parish. Moral pressure on politically-exposed congregants.
Fifth: Use the diaspora’s leverage. US$2,4 billion is not charity. It is power. Organise around one demand: no constitutional manipulation.
Sixth: Build now for 2028. Voter registration. Civic education. Youth mobilisation. Independent institutions Zanu PF cannot capture.
The Constitution belongs to you.
It was bought with blood, ratified through referendum and is now being stolen in plain sight.
The pen in your hand is mightier than any whip at any hearing.
Pick it up.
Write your submission.
Sign your name.
We are on our own. Do not expect Sadc or the EU to save us. And that is enough.
By the disciplined, organised and relentless action of Zimbabweans who have finally decided they deserve a country, this Bill can still be stopped.
Trevor Ncube is a Zimbabwean publisher, the Executive Chairman of Alpha Media Holdings and Founder of Trevor & Associates. He writes at allthingszimbabwe.substack.com