President Emerson Mnangagwa chaired a cabinet meeting that approved a Bill proposing far-reaching constitutional amendments.
Among the proposed changes is the extension of the term of office for both the incumbent President and incumbent Members of Parliament (MPs) by two years, increasing the presidential term from five to seven years.
The Bill also proposes replacing the current system of direct presidential elections with a parliamentary method of electing the president.
Parliament has since gazetted the bill and has invited public comments before MPs vote on it. It is widely expected that MPs will support the bill, particularly because it seeks to extend their own tenure by two years, without the “trouble” of competing in elections.
Under the current constitutional framework, both the President’s and MPs’ terms are due to come to an end in September 2028.
However, if passed the proposed amendment would extend their terms to 2030, effectively postponing the2028 general election.
Legally, any proposal to extend the terms of office for both the President and MPs must be subjected to a national referendum in which Zimbabweans vote either in favour of or against the proposed change. Even if voters were to approve the extension from five to seven years, the constitutional amendment cannot be applied to benefit incumbent officeholders, including Mnangagwa and the current MPs.
This position is clearly outlined in section 328(7) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe and was explicitly affirmed by the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe in Marx Mupungu v Minister of Justice (2021).Earlier, in 2013, the Constitutional Court in Jealous Mawarire v Robert Mugabe and Others ruled that the term of MPs is strictly limited to five years.
The term of office for MPs runs concurrently with that of the President and therefore, the president’s term and that of MPs cannot be lengthened without holding a referendum, according to the constitution as interpreted by the Constitutional Court in the two aforementioned judgments.
Despite these constitutional provisions and clear judicial precedents, the government has indicated that it does not intend to hold national referenda on the matter.
Instead, it maintains that Parliament should decide the proposed changes.
While Parliament has invited public submissions, such input is not binding on MPs when they cast their votes.
Government claims that Mnangagwa is so popular that the “people” have overwhelmingly demanded that his presidential term be extended to give him additional time in office.
Yet the same government refuses to test Mnangagwa’s national popularity.
The taste of the pudding is in the eating! As such, the only true test of Mnangagwa’s popularity is by holding national referenda in which Zimbabweans are asked to vote whether they want to lengthen presidential terms and whether they want Mnangagwa to stay beyond the end of his current term or not.
After all, the constitution demands that a presidential term cannot be extended without asking the people through a national referendum.
It is possible that Mnangagwa and his government may proceed with amending the constitution to extend their terms.
However, doing so would likely trigger some serious challenges for the president and his government
First, is that the amendment is likely to widen divisions within the ruling party Zanu PF and inspire new dimensions of internal factionalism.
Unlike its sister movements in the region such as the African National Congress (ANC )in South Africa and Namibia’s South West Africa Peoples’ Organisation (Swapo), Zanu PF’s perennial problem has been its inability to constructively manage internal succession processes.
The party’s leadership has a toxic history of criminalising succession, and this often promotes internecine factionalism with severe ramifications on the country.
For example, under former president Robert Mugabe,even when it was apparent that Mugabe was struggling with advanced old age, the party discouraged and punished leaders who expressed desire to succeed him.
This created serious unrest within the party which destabilised the state and government.
Consequently, Mugabe was unable to focus on national development as hewas pre-occupied with managing the unrest within his party.
The implementation of national developmental policies also suffered due to internal sabotage.
After decades of party unrest, the military intervened in November 2017,and Mugabe was removed from power.
It seems that, under Mnangagwa, Zanu PF is still yet to appreciate the significance of constructively and timeously managing leadership succession.
At 83 years of age, Mnangagwa is now old, and since his election in 2018 as president, the party knew that it needed to find a successor for him by 2028, due to presidential constitutional term limits.
Yet the party never put in place a succession plan and instead punished those who expressed aspirations for party leadership.
Just as it was under Mugabe, Zanu PF under Mnangagwa has found itself in a succession quagmire, which they are now trying to fire fight by tinkering with national constitutional term limits.
By extending Mnangagwa’s term, some in the party hope to delay dealing with the succession nightmare, while some hope that it will give Mnangagwa additional time to manage the succession process.
This goal is likely to be unachievable.
Even if the extension of Mnangagwa’s term succeeds to kill the succession aspirations of certain current protagonists in the party, it will not resolve the party’s succession problems.
If there is anything to learn from Zanu PF’s history is that whenever one faction is vanquished, another more vicious faction emerges.
For example, after decimating the Joyce Mujuru faction (known in Zimbabwe as the battle of“ Gamatox” versus“Weevils”), Mnangagwa’s “Lacoste” faction emerged to challenge Mugabe’s “Generation 40” faction, and it proved to be more vicious than previous factions.
After decimating the “Generation40” faction, the “ED2030” faction has emerged.
Zanu PF seems to be caught upin a vicious and unending cycle of succession factionalism, because of the failure by the party to deal with leadership succession openly.
The country and its national institutions, including the constitution are perennial victims of this problem
Mnangagwa is said to be an experienced security and intelligence supremo capable of managing the succession process by sniffing out his internal competitors.
But at the age of 85 when he starts his extended term in 2028,hemay be too old to deal effectively with party internal unrest.
The likely result is that the party will continue to be trapped in internecine factionalism and eventually may implode in ways that are similar toor worse than what happed to Mugabe.
In addition to advanced age, Mnangagwa’s situation post 2028will be made more precarious by the fact that the“ED2030”faction that is misleading and backing him to overstay is a loose conglomerate of extremely ambitious politicians and business tycoons whose support for Mnangagwa is not ideologically driven but is driven by the political and commercial convenience of having Mnangagwa staying in office but only for now
It is no secret that the politicians in the “ED2030” faction have competing interests to succeed Mnangagwa himself.
Recent outbursts by Tempter Paul Tungwarara at a Zanu PF rallyin which he castigated some of the party leaders within the “ED2030” faction for harbouring succession ambitions are just but a tip of the iceberg.
Members of the“ED2030”factionlack cohesion because they are not coalescing around any ideology.
They are coalescing around Mnangagwa for material and political power.
They arein a political marriage of convenience to outflank Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga from succeeding Mnangagwa.
But as soon as that mission is achieved(if they do), they are likely to direct their political missiles towards each other and eventually towards Mnangagwa, in the same way that happened to former president Robert Mugabe
After all, some of the proponents of Mnangagwa’s term extension are his former sworn enemies and the jury is still out on their loyalty to Mnangagwa the man as opposed to Mnangagwa the president.
They have a rich history of switching political sides whenever the irindividual political interests are in jeopardy.
Furthermore, among those pushing for Mnangagwa to stay beyond his term are business tycoons who have benefited commercially under his administration.
Similarly, their support for Mnangagwa is not ideologically unconditional. It is based on what they can get out of him. They are likely to ditch him when he is no longer able to benefit them.
We have seen this happening to former president Mugabe when business tycoons who were once vocal in lobbying for him to stay in power quickly switched their allegiance to Emerson Mnangagwa when Mugabe was deposed.
*This is an abridged version of a an article by Justice Alfred Mavedzenge titled: Unconstitutional presidential term extension in Zimbabwe and the serious challenges that lie ahead for President Emerson Mnangagwa. Mavedzenge is a constitutional lawyer and academic.