Zimbabweans are up in arms over the cabinet\u2019s approval of changes to the constitution as part of a bid to extend 83-year-old President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term till 2030.<\/p>\n
While the amendments will still be presented to parliament, it is weighted heavily in favour of his ruling Zanu-PF party.<\/p>\n
Opposition figures described the move as a \u201cconstitutional coup,\u201d saying the changes must be put to a national referendum.<\/p>\n
“The proposed amendments are illegal and unconstitutional in that they infringe the term limit provision of the constitution,\u201d said lawyer Tendai Biti.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore importantly, they seek to do them outside two referendums. The first approving the removal of the term limit, the second referendum approving the incumbent to benefit from the amendments.”<\/p>\n
In addition to extending the presidential term from five to seven years, the changes would see parliament choosing the president instead of the electorate.<\/p>\n
“A president should not rule for a long time, and it is preferable to serve for a short term and give others a chance,” said citizen Augustine Kaswaurere.<\/p>\n
Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 in a military-backed coup that ended Robert Mugabe\u2019s 30-year rule.<\/p>\n
Despite hopes he would bring about change, Mnangagwa has presided over a collapsing economy, undermined by alleged corruption and cronyism.<\/p>\n
The ruling party’s “2030 agenda” has been on the cards for months, prompting opposition leaders to vow to “defend the constitution against its capture”.<\/p>\n
Attempts to demonstrate against the plan have been met with a police crackdown that put scores of people in jail.<\/p>\n
A post-cabinet statement said the amendments would “enhance political stability and policy continuity to allow development programmes to be implemented to completion”.<\/p>\n
Other provisions include allowing the president to appoint 10 more senators, boosting the Senate to 90 seats.<\/p>\n
“Any amendment which has the ‘effect’ of extending an incumbent’s tenure should be subjected to a referendum,” opposition politician David Coltart said after the cabinet statement.<\/p>\n
“They know that if that happens, they will fail, so they will do all in their power to prevent a referendum from happening,” said Coltart, who is mayor of the country’s second city Bulawayo.<\/p>\n
Democracy advocate Professor Lovemore Madhuku said the cabinet’s move was “totally unacceptable”, and risked causing major upheaval in the former British colony.<\/p>\n
“As far as we know, they do not even have a referendum on the agenda,” he said. “It’s an unthinkable way of trying to do politics and … it is going to cause political instability.”<\/p>\n
“It’s clear that the attack on the democratic framework in the country requires nothing but a political response,” he said, predicting a “painful struggle” ahead.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe’s opposition, fragmented and weakened after years of repression, has failed so far to mount significant resistance to the “2030 agenda”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zimbabweans are up in arms over the cabinet\u2019s approval of changes to the constitution as part of a bid to extend 83-year-old President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term till 2030. While the amendments will still be presented to parliament, it is weighted heavily in favour of his ruling Zanu-PF party. Opposition figures described the move as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[57,76],"class_list":["post-19793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-emmerson-mnangagwa","tag-zimbabwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19794,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19793\/revisions\/19794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}