President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s bid to extend his rule to 2030- effectively suspending 2028 elections may be the very catalyst Zimbabwe’s fractured opposition needed to end its long period of dormancy.
Mnangagwa, who rose to power after a coup against long time ruler Robert Mugabe nine years ago, has been ruling amid timid opposition after he crushed the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) and civil society.
Opposition against his government has only come from inside his ruling Zanu PF since the controversial 2023 elections, but the tabled on proposed changes to the constitution in cabinet last week seems to have dramatically changed the status quo.
Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi tabled far reaching proposals to amend the constitution, which include extending Mnangagwa’s term by two years when it expires in 2028.
The 2030 agenda was first adopted at the ruling Zanu PF conference held in Bulawayo two years ago.
At the conference, then party legal secretary Patrick Chinamasa said the proposal to extend Mnangagwa’s term needed a referendum.
In October last year, Zanu PF adopted the 2030 resolution and tasked Ziyambi, who is now the party’s legal secretary, to initiate legal processes to implement it.
In his cabinet presentation last week, Ziyambi said the 2030 proposal will avoid a referendum and will go via the parliamentary route where Zanu PF enjoys a two-thirds majority.
Under the draft amendments, the president would instead be chosen by a joint sitting of parliament instead of the masses.
Former CCC vice-president Tendai Biti, who announced his retirement from party politics after the 2023 election fiasco, on Friday, announced that he was ready to work with Chamisa again to fight the 2030 agenda.
“We are going to work with Chamisa,” Biti told journalists in Harare.
“Up until he held elections, he was my president. So we are going to work with everyone in the fight to protect the constitution.
“We would like to see women on the forefront, we would like to see young people on the forefront, and we would like to see millions in the diaspora working with us.”
MDC leader Douglas Mwonzora urged Zimbabweans to reject Zanu PF’s proposed constitutional amendments.
“This is not routine legislation,” Mwonzora said.
“This is not an administrative adjustment. This is an assault on the very foundation of our constitutional democracy.
"Presidential powers were never meant to be exercised by someone without a fresh, direct mandate from the people.
“Remove the ballot, and you remove the legitimacy.”
Chamisa said Zanu PF had gone rouge.
“At the very least, even Robert Mugabe would submit fundamental changes to a referendum,” he said.
““They propose to end the direct election of the President, to unlawfully extend terms, and to impose unilateral, anti-citizen electoral changes.”
Zanu PF has said Mnangagwa needs more years in office to ensure the completion of unfinished infrastructure projects.
Constitutional law expert Lovemore Madhuku, who leads the National Constitutional, said the argument was flawed.
“If you are in office and you know you are elected for four years, you must do your things within four years,” he told the online Citizens Voice Network.
“If you are elected for five years, do your things within five years. If you cannot do your things within five years, that is a sign of incompetence.”
The Zimbabwe National Students Union (Zinasu) said it will mobilise lawful street protests to challenge attempts to overhaul the constitution without a referendum.
“Zinasu firmly rejects any constitutional amendment that dilutes democratic participation, weakens checks and balance, or diminishes the citizen’s rights to directly choose their leaders,” Zinasu president Liberty Hamuswa said.
“The path forward for Zimbabwe lies in not extending terms of office, or centralising authority, but in faithfully implementing the existing constitution in both letter and spirit.
“As students, as youths, and as committed constitutionalists, we stand ready to defend democracy in its truest form and display the true meaning of democracy in the streets.”
Last week, self-imposed CCC secretary general, Sengezo Tshabangu, said a total of 63 Members of Parliament (MP) from his party supported the proposed amendments during a caucus meeting.
It later emerged that the majority of his MPs boycotted his caucus meeting.
Yesterday, one of his MP’s Richard Tsvangirai said: “I want to categorically, without contradiction or ambiguity, make it clear that I...do not support this particular amendment, which seeks to extend the term limits by about two years.”
“This position has been consistent,” Tsvangirai said.
Exiled former Information minister Jonathan Moyo has thrown weight behind the proposed constitutional amendments.
Australia-based analyst Reason Wafawarova, however, said Zimbabwe does not need intellectual mercenaries’.
“It needs a constitution that cannot be bought, rented, rewritten to suit one man’s term,” Wafawarova said.
Analyst Jealous Mawarire said term extensions are supposed to go via a referendum.
“Section 328 is clear, the 7 year term, is supposed to go through a national referendum, anything short of that is not only unconstitutional but political skullduggery of the highest order,” Mawarire said.
Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga is known to be one of the senior Zanu PF leaders who are against the proposed controversial amendment to the constitution.
Last year, Mnangagwa said he will not stay in office beyond 2028 as he insisted that he was a constitutionalist.
He repeated his stance more than four times, but the Zanu PF leader appears to be now singing a different tune.