Zimbabwe’s government introduced a bill to parliament on Tuesday that \u200bwould extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term by two years to \u200c2030, despite criticism from a fractured opposition and some veterans of the country’s liberation war.<\/p>\n
The draft legislation will be debated on Wednesday at a second reading in \u200bparliament.<\/p>\n
Mnangagwa, 83,\u00a0is meant to step down in 2028 after serving two \u200bfive-year stints as head of state, but his supporters \u2060want to change the constitution to extend presidential terms from five years \u200bto seven.<\/p>\n
They also want presidents to be elected by parliament rather than \u200bby direct popular vote.<\/p>\n
Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi introduced the bill in the lower house of parliament.<\/p>\n
Political analysts expect it to sail through as Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF party has \u200ba two-thirds majority in the lower house and also overwhelmingly controls \u200bthe upper house through traditional leaders and other proxies who generally vote with it, \u200cgiving \u2060it the numbers to change the constitution.<\/p>\n
Ziyambi has said previously that he expects the legislative process will take about a month.<\/p>\n
ZANU-PF has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, first under longtime leader Robert Mugabe \u200band then Mnangagwa, \u200bwho took over \u2060after a 2017 coup.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday a group of retired generals and former civil servants publicly voiced their \u200bopposition to the bill that would extend Mnangagwa’s time \u200bin power.<\/p>\n
They \u2060said they had met with Mnangagwa last month to voice their concerns but he told them “whoever wins, wins”, referring to whether the bill would \u2060pass.<\/p>\n
Some war \u200bveterans and activists also\u00a0challenged the bill\u00a0in \u200bthe Constitutional Court, which reserved judgment while it considers their arguments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zimbabwe’s government introduced a bill to parliament on Tuesday that \u200bwould extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term by two years to \u200c2030, despite criticism from a fractured opposition and some veterans of the country’s liberation war. The draft legislation will be debated on Wednesday at a second reading in \u200bparliament. Mnangagwa, 83,\u00a0is meant to step down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"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","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"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-21032","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\/21032","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21033,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21032\/revisions\/21033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}