Tendai Ruben Mbofana
The recent proposal floated by prominent lawyer Tawanda Nyambirai has the distinct odor of legal sophistry disguised as constitutional innovation.
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By suggesting that President Emmerson Mnangagwa should dissolve Parliament before August 2026 to trigger a “reset” of the constitutional clock, Nyambirai is not offering a path toward national stability.
Instead, he is providing a blueprint for the subversion of the supreme law of the land.
The argument rests on a precarious and fundamentally flawed interpretation of how terms are defined and how elections are triggered.
It is a desperate attempt to use the letter of the law to assassinate its spirit, and it must be dismantled before it gains any further traction in our national discourse.
At the heart of this bombshell proposal is a reliance on Section 91 of the Constitution, which defines a presidential term for the purposes of eligibility.
Nyambirai argues that if the current term is cut short before the three-year mark—specifically before August 2026—it technically does not count as a full term.
In his view, this would allow the incumbent to run again in a fresh election as if the years served since 2023 never existed.
This is not just a reach; it is a hall of mirrors.
It treats the solemn mandate given by millions of Zimbabwean voters as a mere trial period that can be deleted at the push of a button.
To suggest that a President can govern a nation, appoint a cabinet, sign laws, and exercise the full weight of executive power for nearly three years and then claim it “wasn’t a term” is a mockery of democratic accountability.
However, the most fatal flaw in Nyambirai’s logic lies in his assumption that dissolving Parliament automatically terminates the President’s own tenure.
This is a common misconception that conflates the “harmonized” nature of our elections with a legal “suicide pact” between the executive and the legislature.
Under the 2013 Constitution, these are distinct mandates.
Section 143 provides the specific and narrow circumstances under which Parliament may be dissolved before its five-year life expires.
Specifically, this power is only triggered if the National Assembly unreasonably refuses to pass a budget or if both houses of Parliament, by a two-thirds majority of their total membership, pass a resolution to dissolve themselves.
While such a move would indeed trigger a parliamentary election, there is absolutely no provision in the Constitution that says the President’s term ends simply because he has sent the Members of Parliament home.
The President was sworn in on 4 September 2023 for a five-year term that constitutionally expires in 2028.
That mandate is personal to the office of the Presidency.
While Section 158(1) is often cited as the basis for “harmonized” elections, it is strictly a scheduling requirement for the parliamentary cycle.
The President’s own election is merely tethered to this timeframe by Section 92, and nothing in either provision suggests that an early dissolution of the legislature legally terminates the separate five-year executive mandate.
It does not mean that an early dissolution of one branch of government forces the premature death of the other.
If the President chooses to dissolve Parliament in 2026, he may well trigger a scramble for seats in the National Assembly and the Senate, but he himself remains the President until 2028 unless he resigns, dies, is impeached, or becomes incapacitated.
He cannot simply “dissolve” himself out of a term limit.
This distinction is crucial because it exposes the “reset” argument as a legal phantom.
If the President remains in office until 2028, he will have undeniably served a full term regardless of when the parliamentary elections occurred.
The clock does not stop for the executive just because the legislature is in flux.
Nyambirai is attempting to manufacture a “General Election” scenario where the law does not demand one.
He is banking on the idea that the “harmonization” rule is so absolute that it would force a presidential contest.
But the law is clear that harmonization is the standard for the regular end of a five-year cycle, not a tool for an incumbent to abandon his current mandate and start a fresh one whenever it becomes politically convenient to dodge a term limit.
Furthermore, the proposal completely ignores the towering presence of Section 328(7) of the Constitution.
This is the entrenchment clause, the ultimate “deadbolt” designed specifically to prevent the very kind of power-retention schemes we are currently witnessing.
It explicitly states that any amendment to a term-limit provision cannot benefit the person who held that office at any time before the amendment.
Nyambirai’s plan is a transparent attempt to bypass this wall by arguing that he is not “extending” a term, but rather “restarting” one.
This is a distinction without a difference.
Whether you call it an extension or a reset, the outcome is the same—an incumbent seeking to occupy the highest office for a period longer than the two five-year terms permitted by the Constitution at the time of their inauguration.
The suggestion that this is a “less divisive way forward” is perhaps the most disingenuous part of the entire argument.
In reality, such a move would be profoundly destabilizing.
It would signal to the world and to the citizens of Zimbabwe that our supreme law is nothing more than a plasticine toy to be molded by the hands of clever lawyers to suit the whims of the powerful.
It would set a terrifying precedent where any future leader who finds themselves approaching a term limit could simply dissolve Parliament every two years and eleven months to ensure they never technically complete a “term.”
It would turn the constitutional term limit from a pillar of democracy into a revolving door for perpetual rule.
We must ask ourselves what kind of constitutional order we want to leave for future generations.
Do we want a system where the rules are fixed and predictable, or a system where “lawfare” is used to navigate around the will of the people?
The Constitution was not written to be a puzzle for politicians to solve so they can stay in power.
It was written to provide a framework for the orderly transfer of power and to protect the sovereignty of the citizens.
The idea that we can simply “delete” three years of governance to satisfy a political ambition is an insult to every Zimbabwean who stood in line to vote in 2023.
The President can dissolve Parliament if he wants, but he still has to serve his full term until 2028.
He cannot escape the reality that his time is governed by the mandate he received and the limits set by the people in the 2013 Constitution.
Any attempt to use the early dissolution of Parliament as a “get out of jail free” card for term limits is legally bankrupt and democratically dangerous.
The courts, the legal profession, and the citizenry must see this proposal for what it truly is—a clever piece of gymnastics designed to bypass the democratic deadbolts of our nation.
The strength of a democracy is measured by the degree to which its leaders are willing to submit to the laws they have sworn to uphold.
When those leaders, through their proxies and legal advisors, begin searching for loopholes to avoid the inevitable end of their tenure, the foundation of the state begins to crumble.
We do not need a “reset” of the constitutional clock.
We need a reset of our political culture, one that respects the finality of term limits and the sanctity of the constitutional text.
The path forward is not through the manufactured crisis of an early dissolution, but through the honest and faithful adherence to the law as it is written.
The 2028 deadline is not a suggestion; it is a constitutional command.
No amount of legal maneuvering can change the fact that a term served is a term served, and the people of Zimbabwe will not be fooled by a shell game played with their supreme law.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
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