We the undersigned hereby make this submission on behalf of the Zimbabwe Indigenous Interdenominational Council of Churches (ZIICC), the main Umbrella Body representing Zimbabwean Indigenous Christian Apostolic, Pentecostal, Evangelical and other Church Denominations with a combined membership in excess of 8.7 million Zimbabweans, making up over half of both the national and Christian population of Zimbabwe.
We submit this statement to the Parliament of the Republic of Zimbabwe in the matter of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1. Bill, 2026.
We make this submission as shepherds of the people, as men and women of God who have walked with Zimbabwe’s communities in times of struggle and in times of harvest, and who bear a sacred obligation to speak when the destiny of our land is being shaped. The Church has always been present at Zimbabwe’s defining moments: in the liberation struggle, in the making of the 2013 Constitution, and in the building of the Second Republic. We are present today.
We submit this statement in full acknowledgement of the supremacy of Almighty God, in whose hands our future lies, as proclaimed in the Preamble to the Constitution of Zimbabwe. We are guided by the conviction that governance is a divine stewardship, that authority is held in trust on behalf of the people, and that the institutions of this nation, foremost among them the Parliament of Zimbabwe, are instruments through which the sovereign will of the people is expressed and exercised.
Our churches are not confined to the cities. They are congregations in the rural districts of every province, communities that know this land and its people from the ground up. Our congregants are the farmers, the teachers, the mothers, the young men and women who built this country and who will inherit it. We speak on their behalf and in their name.
We submit this statement in support of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1 Bill, 2026, and we do so with conviction, with clarity, and with the full authority of our calling.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MANDATE OF PARLIAMENT: THE PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY SPOKEN
There is a teaching that runs through the apostolic tradition, through the prophetic movements, and through the oldest streams of African Christianity in this land: that authority given by God must be exercised by those to whom it was given, and that to usurp that authority, however, well-intentioned the usurper, is itself a violation of the divine order.
The people of Zimbabwe gave their legislative authority to Parliament. They did so in 2013 when they made their Constitution; and they did so in 2023, through a free election conducted under universal adult suffrage, in accordance with the founding values of section 3(2)(b) of the Constitution. They elected their Senators and their Members of the National Assembly. They entrusted to those men and women the power to make law, to protect the Constitution, and to exercise legislative oversight in the national interest. The people of Zimbabwe discharged their democratic mandate. Parliament now carries that mandate forward in the name of and for the people.
Section 117(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013 declares that the legislative authority of Zimbabwe is derived from the people and is vested in and exercised in accordance with the Constitution by the Legislature. Section 117(2)(a) confirms that this legislative authority includes the power to amend the Constitution in accordance with section 328. Section 119(1) affirms that Parliament must protect the Constitution and promote democratic governance in Zimbabwe. Section 119(2) confirms that Parliament has power to ensure that the provisions of the Constitution are upheld and that the State and all institutions and agencies of Government at every level act constitutionally and in the national interest.
These are not technicalities. They are the constitutional expression of a truth that our communities have always understood: those entrusted with legislative authority must exercise it. Parliament was entrusted. Parliament must act.
We therefore affirm, without equivocation, that the deliberation on and passage of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1. Bill, 2026 lies squarely and exclusively within the constitutional mandate of Parliament and Parliament alone. It is not the mandate of any church council, any church conference, any professional body, any civic coalition, or any external body. It is Parliament’s mandate. And Parliament’s exercise of that mandate is not and cannot be a threat to democracy, it is democracy itself.
We affirm that the public participation requirement of section 141 of the Constitution has been fulfilled. Parliament conducted public hearings across all administrative districts of Zimbabwe. The Clerk of Parliament opened the written submission process to every Zimbabwean and every organisation that wished to be heard. That is what section 141 requires, meaningful participation, not unanimous consent. The Constitution does not grant anybody or any organisation a veto over Parliament. It grants citizens a voice. That voice has been heard. Parliament must now deliberate and decide.
It must be said plainly: when any institution, however respected, however sincere in its convictions, tells Parliament to withdraw a Bill that has been constitutionally introduced and publicly consulted upon, that institution is not defending democracy. It is seeking to substitute its own judgment for the judgment of the people’s elected representatives. Submissions to Parliament are inputs. They are offerings of perspective. They are not instructions or demands; and they are not vetoes.
2. THE NATION MUST FINISH
WHAT IT HAS STARTED
The Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1. Bill, 2026 states in its preamble: “AND WHEREAS national development programmes benefit from stability and continuity of policies and legislative frameworks within a predictable governance environment, thereby enabling such programmes to be implemented to completion.” This is not the language of political convenience. It is the language of a nation with a clear developmental vision and the determination to see it through. Vision 2030, adopted in October 2018, was Zimbabwe’s most ambitious, detailed and comprehensive long-term development framework since independence, charting a pathway to a prosperous and empowered upper-middle-income society by 2030. It was followed by the National Development Strategy 1, launched on 16 November 2020, as the first five-year implementation instrument of Vision 2030, built through extensive consultations across all sectors of Zimbabwean society. These are internationally recognised, fully costed, and carefully constructed development frameworks that represent the most serious national planning Zimbabwe has undertaken since independence.
Our congregants do not engage with these as policy abstractions. They know which infrastructure was promised to their districts. They know which irrigation schemes, road rehabilitation projects, and health facilities were allocated to their communities. They pinned their hopes on Vision 2030 and on NDS1 as specific commitments to specific people. The content of these frameworks has never been seriously disputed. The objection has never been to the content. It has always been to the Government advancing it.
Both were derailed. Vision 2030’s early implementation phase was disrupted by the political instability that rocked the country in January 2019, which cost the nation critical momentum at precisely the moment the Second Republic needed to establish its developmental foundation. That turbulence was not accidental. It was a deliberate attempt to destabilise a government that had committed itself to a developmental agenda whose benefits would reach the very communities that the architects of that turbulence claimed to represent. NDS1 then faced a double assault: the Covid-19 pandemic, which no Government anywhere in the world foresaw or escaped, and the deliberate political agitation of 31 July 2020, which sought to weaponise the pandemic’s disruption for political ends at the moment when Zimbabwe needed unity and focus the most. The same forces that disrupted the implementation of Vision 2030 and NDS1 then, are the same forces that oppose their protection now. The Covid-19 experience also exposed a post-colonial structural truth manifesting across Africa, which Zimbabwe felt with particular force: the five-year governance cycle is insufficient to absorb and recover from a major exogenous shock or to foster key infrastructural development.
When disruption, whether natural or manufactured, strikes mid-term, the government loses years of effective implementation time with no recovery space. Every setback becomes a governance catastrophe rather than a manageable interruption.
The extension of the presidential election cycle from five to seven years, effected by clause 4 of the Bill, which amends section 95(2)(b) of the Constitution, and the corresponding extension of the parliamentary term effected by clause 9 of the Bill, which amends section 143(1) of the Constitution, are the necessary constitutional response to this developmental reality. We see seven years not as an arbitrary number.
It is the governance space required to plan, absorb disruption, recover, and complete programmes of the scale and ambition that Vision 2030 and NDS2 represent. Vision 2030 is not a slogan to our congregants. It is a promise that must be kept. This Bill ensures that the keeping of that promise is not interrupted again.
We also speak as people of faith for whom the number seven carries a weight and a spiritual meaning that no secular argument can fully capture. The Bible teaches in Leviticus 25 and Exodus 23 that God commanded His people to work the land for six years and to rest it in the seventh, a Sabbath year of restoration, renewal, and completion. The principle is not merely agricultural. It is a divine architecture for the relationship between labour and rest, between the effort of building and the completion of what was built. Seven years of dedicated, uninterrupted work, followed by a moment of renewal. That is the Sabbath principle. That is what this Bill proposes for Zimbabwe. We note with deep respect, and with a measure of holy recognition, that this principle was not first introduced into Zimbabwe’s constitutional conversation by the drafters of this Bill. It was introduced by the church. On 7 October 2019, a coalition of Christian denominations, in a statement that drew on precisely these biblical themes of Sabbath and Jubilee, called upon the nation to observe a seven-year political sabbath, a season of non-competitive electoral politics, non-partisan dedication to national healing, economic recovery, and the rebuilding of trust.
The statement noted that Zimbabwe would reach its Jubilee year in 2029 and called for seven years of national dedication to that goal. We say to those who made that call in 2019: your prayer was heard. The drafters of this Bill listened to the Church. They took the seven-year principle that your pastoral wisdom identified as the right season for Zimbabwe’s renewal and gave it lasting constitutional expression. Those who had the vision in 2019 should be the first to congratulate Parliament for honouring the Church’s own wisdom. We call upon them, with all the grace and generosity that the Sabbath spirit demands, to recognise in this Bill the fulfilment of their own prophetic declaration, and to add their voices to ours in support of the passage of the Bill.
We note that the drafters of the Bill have engaged directly, transparently, and explicitly with the provisions of section 328 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013. Clause 4 of the Bill inserts new subsection (2a) into section 95 of the Constitution, stating that notwithstanding section 328(7) of the Constitution, subsection (2)(b) of section 95 of the Constitution shall apply to the continuation in office of the President. Clause 9 of the Bill inserts new subsection (2a) into section 143 of the Constitution, stating that notwithstanding section 328(7) of the Constitution, subsection (1) of section 143 of the Constitution shall apply to the continuation in office of the Senate and National Assembly. We have understood that the “notwithstanding” phrase is not meant to amend, modify or override section 328(7) but to make clear that sections 95(2) and 143(1) being amended by Clauses 4 and 9 of the Bill are NOT term limit provisions. The same approach and use of the “notwithstanding” phrase was used when section 186 was amended under Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No.2) Act 2021 The drafters of the Bill have been transparent and they have respected the law and followed binding precedent. They have not attempted to circumvent section 328 of the Constitution by stealth or omission. If there are legal questions to be resolved, the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe, not religious or other institutions, is the only institution mandated by the Constitution to resolve them.
We further observe that the argument for a national referendum, which has been advanced in this debate, rests on a misreading of section 328 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013. Section 328(7) of the Constitution provides that an amendment to a term-limit provision shall not apply to the benefit of any person who held that office at the time of the amendment. However, section 328(7) is only engaged if and only if the provision being amended is first established to be a “term-limit provision” within the meaning of section 328(1) of the Constitution. Section 328(1) of the Constitution defines a “term-limit provision” as a provision of the Constitution which limits the length of time that a person may hold or occupy a public office. Section 95(2)(b) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013, which governs the presidential term of office, does not fix a personal cap on how long any individual may hold the presidency. It makes the presidential term or cycle coterminous with Parliament’s lifespan, measuring the term by reference to Parliament’s duration rather than imposing a fixed period attached to the person who holds office as President. It is, therefore, not a “term-limit provision” within the technical meaning of section 328(1) of the Constitution. If the premise that section 95(2)(b) is a term-limit provision is not satisfied, then section 328(7) is never triggered and its consequence, the incumbent-protection rule requiring a referendum, does not activate.
The argument for a referendum, therefore, fails at its first step. This reading has been the subject of serious legal scholarship and is currently before the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe, which is the only appropriate institution to make the final constitutional determination. Parliament is entitled, constitutionally and democratically, to proceed with its deliberations in the meantime.
3. ON THE REFORM OF OUR ELECTORAL AND GOVERNANCE INSTITUTIONS
We affirm our support for the institutional reforms proposed in the Bill. Taken together, these reforms reflect a commitment to strengthening the architecture of governance, clarifying institutional mandates, and building structures that serve Zimbabwe’s long-term development needs. We address each substantive reform in turn.
Clause 2 of the Bill inserts a new section 43A into the Constitution of Zimbabwe, transferring responsibility for voter registration, the compilation of voters’ rolls and registers, and their maintenance to the Registrar-General. The Registrar-General is the custodian of the national civil registry, the record of births, deaths, marriages, and the national identity of every Zimbabwean citizen under the Births and Deaths Registration Act and the National Registration Act. It is administratively coherent and practically sound that the same office which holds the identity records of every citizen should also hold responsibility for registering that citizen to vote. This integration of civil and electoral registration builds on Zimbabwe’s existing national registration infrastructure and places the voters’ roll in the hands of the institution best placed technically to maintain it accurately and comprehensively.
Clause 3 of the Bill repeals and replaces section 92 of the Constitution, introducing a parliamentary method for the election of the President. Under the amended section 92(1) as proposed in the Bill, the President must be elected by the members of Parliament in a joint sitting of the Senate and the National Assembly. Section 92(3), as proposed, would require that a candidate receive more than half of the valid votes cast by members of Parliament to be elected President, with a run-off provision under the proposed section 92(4) where no candidate achieves an absolute majority in the first ballot. Section 92(5) would provide that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission presides over the election.
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