Tendai Ruben Mbofana

​The Parliament of Zimbabwe recently issued an invitation that on the surface appears to be a hallmark of a thriving participatory democracy.

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A formal notice prominently displayed the national coat of arms and cited section 328(4) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

This provision is peremptory; it mandates that immediately after the Speaker has given notice of a Constitutional Bill, Parliament must invite members of the public to express their views on the proposed changes through public meetings and written submissions.

The document specifically calls for comments on the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Number 3 Bill, H.B. 1, 2026.

It even provides an email address and a physical location for submissions.

Yet, for any Zimbabwean who has been paying attention to the heavy-handedness of the state in recent weeks, this invitation feels less like an olive branch and more like a cruel joke.

The proposed amendments under this Bill are seismic in their potential impact on the nation’s democratic health.

The Bill seeks to extend the presidential term from five to seven years and shift the direct public election of the president to a process where the head of state is selected by Parliament.

These changes have naturally been met with widespread opposition.

The most contentious point remains the fact that this term extension is clearly intended to benefit the incumbent, President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

This is where the legal gymnastics of the state’s spin doctors begin, as they try to package this as a mere adjustment of the electoral cycle or a lengthening of a term rather than an addition of new terms.

However, the 2013 Constitution was written with precisely this kind of power grab in mind.

Section 328(7) is remarkably clear when it states that any amendment to a term-limit provision, the effect of which is to extend the length of time that a person may hold or occupy any public office, cannot benefit any person who held or occupied that office at any time before the amendment.

​No amount of verbal wizardry can obscure the fact that amending the Constitution to enable the president to remain in office beyond the current five-year term ending in 2028 is effectively extending the length of time he occupies public office.

This is, by every definition, a term-limit amendment.

According to section 328(9), the only way to change this provision in a way that allows the incumbent to benefit is through a national referendum.

Despite this, the government is aggressively pursuing a path that avoids the referendum route entirely, which constitutes an undeniable violation of the supreme law of the land.

​This brings us to the core of the hypocrisy.

While Parliament is ostensibly inviting the public to submit views, the state’s security apparatus is working overtime to ensure those views are never formulated through open, collective debate.

How can we trust a process when the ground reality is one of extreme intolerance?

According to recent reports, the police in Bulawayo blocked a public meeting organized by the Public Policy Research Institute of Zimbabwe (PPRIZ) that was meant to discuss this very Bill.

The meeting, which featured a diverse panel including Mayor David Coltart, ZANU-PF provincial chairman Jabulani Sibanda, and constitutional lawyers, was shut down after police declined permission.

Mayor Coltart noted that the paranoia shown by the ruling party over this Bill reveals a deep-seated insecurity.

If the government truly believed these amendments were in the interest of the people, why would they fear a discussion involving both their own party members and the opposition?

​The situation is even more dire in Harare.

The National Constitution Assembly (NCA) reported that two of its members, Naboth Sirora and Innocent Taruona, were abducted and tortured shortly after attending a meeting to discuss Amendment Bill Number 3.

These individuals were allegedly seized by unidentified men, blindfolded, assaulted, and eventually dumped in the Highlands area without their clothes.

This follows reports of another alleged abduction just last week involving a member of the Constitution Defenders Forum (CDF)—a group currently targeted for its vocal ‘anti-2030’ campaign—who was reportedly seized and brutalized by unknown assailants specifically for distributing materials that challenge the extension of the presidential term.

These are not the actions of a government confident in its mandate or the popularity of its policies.

They are the actions of a state desperate to prevent the citizenry from understanding the full implications of the laws being forced upon them.

​We must ask why the government is so desperate to prevent the people from discussing issues that will directly affect their lives and the future of their country.

If these reports are accurate, the state clearly has no interest in the actual views of the people.

It appears those in authority have already decided the outcome and are simply going through the motions to satisfy a legal requirement.

This charade of inviting submissions to Parliament while simultaneously criminalizing public gathering is a sham.

How can we have an enlightened public capable of submitting educated views when they are physically barred from sharing ideas and debating the merits of the Bill?

​The state knows that an informed public will inevitably demand that the letter and spirit of the Constitution be followed.

They know that once citizens understand that section 328 mandates a national referendum for any change benefiting the incumbent, the vast majority of submissions would demand exactly that.

By silencing public discussion, the government creates a vacuum that it hopes to fill with a manufactured narrative.

They want to be able to claim, at the end of the day, that the majority of public submissions were in favor of the process as gazetted.

They are banking on the silence they have enforced through fear and violence.

​However, a fundamental truth remains that whatever the announced official outcome of these filtered public submissions might be, they can never override the Constitution itself.

The supreme law is not a flexible tool to be bent at the whim of the powerful.

Section 328 is unambiguous.

The incumbent cannot benefit from a term-limit extension without a direct mandate from the people through a national referendum.

Any attempt to bypass this is not just a procedural error; it is a full-scale assault on the democratic foundation of Zimbabwe.

The Parliament of Zimbabwe must realize that its invitation for public comments is currently worth less than the paper it is printed on.

For as long as activists are being abducted, lawyers are being silenced, and public meetings are being banned, there is no participatory democracy to speak of.

The people of Zimbabwe deserve more than a theatrical performance of consultation.

They deserve the right to speak, to assemble, and most importantly, the right to decide their own future through the referendum the Constitution guarantees them.

• 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