HARARE – A parliamentary committee report tabled in the National Assembly on Wednesday claims that out of 540,037 total submissions received during public consultations on the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 3) Bill, some 537,102 – or 99.4 percent – supported the proposed changes, which include extending the presidential term and scrapping direct elections for the presidency.
The figures, tabled by the Joint Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and eight other committees, drew immediate incredulity from critics who say they represent a grotesque distortion of public opinion, and cement long-standing accusations that the nationwide hearings were a choreographed exercise rather than a genuine democratic consultation.
The report recommends adoption of all key provisions of the bill, including extending the electoral cycle from five to seven years – a change that, as applied to the incumbent, would push President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s current term, due to end in September 2028, to 2030, as well as replacing the direct presidential vote with election by parliament.
On Wednesday the bill passed its second reading in parliament and will now be debated before a vote.
The bill is expected to sail through: Zanu PF holds a two-thirds majority in the lower house and overwhelmingly controls the upper house through traditional leaders and other proxies who tend to vote with the ruling party, giving it the constitutional arithmetic to rewrite the supreme law.
Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has previously indicated the legislative process would take approximately one month. Observers say it might breeze through within seven days.
The 99.4 percent support figure jars sharply with the political reality of a deeply contested country. In the 2023 general election, Mnangagwa won the presidency with just 52.6 percent of the vote, according to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, barely clearing the 50 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff.
The opposition and international observers disputed even that result, which was announced after an election marked by widespread intimidation and alleged vote-buying by Zanu PF agents posted outside polling stations.
Tendai Biti, the convener of the Constitutional Defenders Forum, said: “It remains as clear as a pikestaff that the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans are totally and absolutely against this bill.
“It remains clear that despite spending millions of dollars to manufacture consensus, the regime has dismally failed to garner any support for its vulgar project .
“Further, despite repression, violence and weaponisation of the law against those opposed to the bill , the syndicate has failed to stop the wave of overwhelming support against the sobriquet.
“It is clear to all that the bill is a creation of the cartels and gangsters , commonly known as zvigananda (rapacious wealth accumulators) who are running and controlling Zimbabwe’s deep, insecure and incestuous shadow state – a phalanx of illiterate thieves that have no soul nor morality.”
He added that “history tells us that any project pushed without consensus and ownership of the citizen will collapse.”
Critics like Biti argue the methodology behind the parliamentary consultation guaranteed a pre-determined outcome. Reports of intimidation, bussing in of Zanu PF supporters, and the exclusion of dissenting voices characterised hearings across the country – with some venues seeing violence against those who attempted to oppose the bill.
The numbers in the report carry their own internal anomalies. Of the 470,117 written submissions physically brought to parliament, 469,040 supported the bill. Of 2,232 email submissions – a channel more accessible to educated urban Zimbabweans – only 760 were in support, while 1,472 opposed it. The email figure, less susceptible to organised mobilisation, tells a starkly different story.
Attendance at the much-criticised physical public hearings, meanwhile, totalled just 67,688 people nationally – a relatively modest figure for a country of some 16 million, raising questions about who actually participated and under what conditions.
Of that number, parliament says, 67,302 people backed the controversial bill against a paltry 386 in opposition.
The report lands amid a wall of opposition from civil society, legal bodies, religious organisations and even figures from within Zimbabwe’s security establishment.
On Tuesday, a group of retired generals and former civil servants publicly voiced their opposition to the bill. They said they had met with Mnangagwa last month to convey their concerns, but that the president told them: “Whoever wins, wins” – a reference to whether the bill would pass.
War veterans and activists have also challenged the bill in the Constitutional Court, which has reserved judgement while it considers their arguments.
Chief Justice Elizabeth Gwaunza last week blocked the livestreaming of proceedings in that case – a ruling that itself sparked controversy.
The Law Society of Zimbabwe, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s lawyers, and an ecumenical group of church leaders have all publicly opposed Amendment No. 3.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission chairperson Jessie Majome was removed by Mnangagwa after the body criticised parliament’s physical public hearings.
Various civil society coalitions have raised constitutional objections, particularly over Section 328(7) of the constitution, which explicitly prohibits any amendment extending a term of office from benefiting the person currently holding that office.
Beyond the term extension and the shift to parliamentary election of the president, the bill proposes a wide range of constitutional changes: transferring voter registration from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to the Registrar-General; establishing a separate Delimitation Commission; raising qualifications for the Attorney-General to Supreme Court judge level; increasing Senate membership from 80 to 90 through ten presidential appointees; vesting judicial appointments in the president in consultation with the Judicial Service Commission; and repealing the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission.
The parliamentary committee on justice recommended against some clauses, among them the abolition of the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, bowing to pressure from women’s organisations, and recommended retaining another traditional convention, blocking the proposed amendment that would have allowed traditional leaders to participate in partisan politics.
Zanu PF has governed Zimbabwe without interruption since independence from Britain in 1980, first under Robert Mugabe, who ruled for 37 years, and then under Mnangagwa, who came to power after a military coup in November 2017 that ended Mugabe’s tenure.
Mnangagwa won the 2018 election – the first since the coup – in a disputed vote, and was re-elected in 2023. With two five-year terms under the current constitution, his mandate would ordinarily end in 2028. The proposed amendment would reset that clock. – ZimLive
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