Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill, 2026: what a tangled web of deceit! W Mukori

 The government is preparing sweeping constitutional amendments that would extend presidential terms to seven years, abolish direct presidential elections and fundamentally alter Zimbabwe's succession framework.

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Ziyambi Ziyambi is expected to table a memorandum before cabinet on Tuesday outlining the proposed Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill, 2026, which introduces far-reaching changes to the country's governance system and key constitutional institutions.

One of the most significant proposals is the repeal of Section 92 of the Constitution, paving the way for the president to be elected by a joint sitting of Parliament rather than through a direct popular vote.

According to a leaked draft of the bill, members of the National Assembly and Senate would elect the president by a majority vote after general elections or whenever a vacancy arises.

The bill also seeks to extend the term of office for both the president and Parliament from the current five years to seven years. If adopted, the change could allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is currently serving his second and final term under existing constitutional limits, to remain in office for an additional two years — from 2028 to 2030.

In the memorandum, Ziyambi argues that longer terms would reduce what he describes as "election mode toxicity" and give government more time to implement development programmes, framing the proposal as a measure to promote stability and policy continuity.

However, constitutional lawyers have warned that such changes may require approval through a national referendum. Ziyambi has publicly dismissed this, insisting that a referendum will not be necessary.

The referendum question is expected to be central in a Constitutional Court challenge that is now imminent. The Matabeleland pressure group Ibhetshu LikaZulu and its secretary general Mbuso Fuzwayo were on Monday granted direct access to the Constitutional Court in an unopposed application. The case, which critics allege is sponsored by Zanu-PF, could be heard and determined before Chief Justice Luke Malaba retires on May 14.

The proposed amendments are already generating intense political debate. Critics warn that abolishing direct presidential elections would significantly dilute citizens' role in choosing their leader and further concentrate power in Parliament, where the ruling Zanu-PF enjoys a dominant majority.

Some analysts caution that the changes could allow an unpopular but wealthy politician to ascend to the presidency by influencing or "buying" the loyalty of MPs.

The draft bill also makes major changes to presidential succession rules. Instead of a vice president automatically assuming office in the event of death, resignation or removal of an incumbent, Parliament would elect a new president within a specified period.

Analysts say this could undermine the traditional advantage held by sitting vice presidents and open succession to broader political contestation. The shift is likely to fuel speculation about succession politics within Zanu-PF, where Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has long been viewed as a potential successor to Mnangagwa.

Another controversial proposal would expand the Senate, allowing the president to appoint an additional 10 senators selected for their professional skills and competencies. This would further increase presidential influence within Parliament.

The bill also proposes abolishing the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, transferring its functions to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, which the memorandum says already has a mandate to protect all human rights. In addition, it seeks to repeal constitutional provisions establishing the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission.

Other proposed changes include transferring responsibility for voter registration and custody of the voters' roll from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to the Registrar General, and repealing constitutional restrictions that bar traditional leaders from participating in partisan politics. Ziyambi argues that prohibiting chiefs from political participation "violates their political rights," with their conduct instead to be regulated by legislation.

The government also plans to amend the functions of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, replacing their duty "to uphold this Constitution" with wording requiring them to act "in accordance with the Constitution."

Ziyambi maintains that the proposed amendments will "reinforce constitutional governance, strengthen democratic structures, clarify institutional mandates, and harmonise Zimbabwe's constitutional order with tested and successful practices in other progressive jurisdictions."

If adopted, the bill would mark the most extensive overhaul of Zimbabwe's constitutional framework since the current constitution was enacted in 2013, with profound implications for the country's democratic system and balance of power.

THE PEOPLE ELECTED PARLIAMENT AND PRESIDENT IN 2023 FOR 5 YEARS MAX. THERE WAS NO MENTION OF EXTENDING TERM THEN. IT IS ABSURD ELECTED SHOULD  EXTENDED TERM, FIAT ACCOMPLI, AND FOR SELFISH REASONS.

WHEN MNANGAGWA & CO. STAGED 2017 MILITARY COUP AND GOT HIGH COURT TO ENDORSE IT "CONSTITUTIONAL" THEY SET A DANGEROUS PRECEDENCE. TRADING ONE PHRASE FOR ANOTHER WILL NEVER ERAISE THE PRECEDENCE! 

‘Oh what a tangled web we weave 

When first we practice to deceive.’

Scottish author, Sir Walter Scott.

EDSON ZVOBGO: ARCHITECT OF POWER, VICTIM OF POLITICS ​By Gabriel Manyati

 EDSON ZVOBGO: ARCHITECT OF POWER, VICTIM OF POLITICS

​By Gabriel Manyati

​History is often cruel to those who craft the very cages they later find themselves trapped in. In the sunlit narrative of Zimbabwe’s liberation, few figures are as towering, as enigmatic, or as ultimately frustrated as Edson Jonas Mudadirwa Zvobgo. A Harvard-trained legal mind with a gift for quoting Shakespeare and Shona proverbs in the same breath, he spent his final years exiled not from the country he helped shape, but from the corridors of power he had meticulously built. 

​Born in 1935 under the shadow of the Dutch Reformed Church in Masvingo, Zvobgo was the son of a minister, a pedigree that perhaps gifted him his thunderous oratory. But the pulpit was too small for him. He was a man of the "crucible," as he once described the nationalist struggle.

By the 1960s, he was already a marked man, arrested alongside Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo for daring to suggest that the land belonged to its people. It was in the damp solitude of Rhodesian prison cells that the legend of Zvobgo the intellectual began to crystallise.

​While others merely endured their incarceration, Zvobgo studied. He famously boasted of his academic superiority over his peers, including Mugabe himself. "I studied vertically," he would say with that characteristic, mischievous glint in his eye, "while Mugabe studied horizontally." It was a cheeky jab at the president’s numerous degrees, but it carried a subtext of genuine intellectual arrogance. Zvobgo did not just want to lead; he wanted to be the smartest man in the room.

​The world truly met him in 1979 at Lancaster House. As the spokesperson for ZANU PF, he was the velvet glove on the iron fist of the revolution. To the international press, he was a revelation: witty, urban and devastatingly sharp. When asked about the morality of the struggle, he was chillingly pragmatic: "Whites must be led down the garden path to the place of slaughter. Morality does not come into it."

​However, the tragedy of Eddison Zvobgo is that he was the chief architect of his own eventual irrelevance. As the Minister of Parliamentary and Constitutional Affairs in the late 1980s, he was the man who took a scalpel to the Lancaster House Constitution. Between 1987 and 1990, Zvobgo masterminded a series of legislative manoeuvres that fundamentally altered the DNA of the Zimbabwean state. 

The most consequential of these was Constitution Amendment No. 7, which abolished the office of the ceremonial President and the executive Prime Minister, fusing them into a single, omnipotent Executive Presidency.

​This was not merely a change in title; it was a wholesale transfer of power. Zvobgo’s drafting ensured the president became the Commander-in-Chief with the unilateral authority to appoint and dismiss vice presidents, ministers, and even judges. He facilitated the abolition of the 20 seats reserved for the white minority, a move that removed one of the few remaining parliamentary checks on ZANU PF’s dominance. By removing the need for the president to be accountable to a separate head of state, Zvobgo effectively dismantled the guardrails of the young democracy.

​Critics suggested he was tailor-making a suit that he expected to wear himself once Mugabe retired. He thought he was building a throne for an eventual successor; instead, he built a fortress that would provide the legal scaffolding for decades of authoritarian rule.

By concentrating power in the hands of one man, Zvobgo’s amendments created a system where the judiciary and legislature became mere appendages of the executive. The "imperial presidency" he authored allowed for the suspension of human rights with a single pen stroke, a legacy that haunted the country long after Zvobgo himself fell from grace.

​His relationship with Mugabe was a dance of mutual respect and simmering resentment. Mugabe feared Zvobgo’s brilliance and his powerful Karanga base in Masvingo. Zvobgo, in turn, could not hide his ambition. He was the "President Zimbabwe never had," a title that became both a compliment and a curse.

​The cracks in the facade began to show during the dark days of Gukurahundi. While most of the ZANU PF leadership remained silent or complicit in the massacres in Matabeleland, Zvobgo was one of the few who had the courage to offer something of an apology. Speaking in parliament in 1999, he called it a "moment of madness," a phrase that has since become a haunting euphemism for state-sponsored violence. This admission of guilt was a cardinal sin in the eyes of the Mugabe inner circle.

​The friction reached a fever pitch in the mid-1990s. Zvobgo’s intellect was no longer a tool for the party; it had become a threat. Mugabe began to systematically sideline him, moving him from the powerful Justice ministry to Mines, and eventually to the ghost-office of Minister without Portfolio. 

The personal animosity was palpable. During central committee meetings, Zvobgo would often correct Mugabe on points of law or history, a public slight the president never forgave. Mugabe once remarked that Zvobgo was "a man of many words but little action," to which Zvobgo allegedly retorted that "action without thought is the hallmark of a tyrant."

​In 1996, Zvobgo survived a car accident that left both his legs shattered. In the paranoid atmosphere of Zimbabwean politics, few believed it was an accident. His niece, Kelebogile Zvobgo, later recalled the hushed tones of relatives who believed it was an assassination attempt - the price of stepping out of line. Shortly after, Mugabe demoted him further. Zvobgo, undeterred, retreated to his fiefdom in Masvingo, where he reigned from his hotels, a gaunt but still ebullient king in exile.

​The arrival of Jonathan Moyo, the mercurial academic turned propaganda chief, added a new layer of vitriol to Zvobgo’s life. Moyo was the new "golden boy," the man tasked with sanitising Mugabe’s image and crushing the independent press.

Zvobgo viewed Moyo as a political upstart, a "Johnny-come-lately" who lacked the scars of the struggle. The two clashed spectacularly over the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) in 2002.

​As chairman of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, Zvobgo used his legal expertise to dismantle Moyo’s legislation. In a moment of high drama in the House, Zvobgo stood and delivered a blistering critique that stunned his colleagues. He called AIPPA "the most calculated and determined assault on our liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, in the 20 years I served as cabinet minister." He accused Moyo of introducing "unconstitutional and irrational" laws that were "not reasonably justifiable in a democratic society."

​Moyo, supported by the president’s office, fought back, accusing Zvobgo of being a "reactionary" and a "traitor" who was working with the opposition. The state media, under Moyo’s control, began a campaign to vilify the veteran nationalist.

Zvobgo was unphased. He famously told Moyo that while the ninister was "studying how to be a Zimbabwean," Zvobgo was busy "defining what Zimbabwe is." It was a clash between the intellectual founder and the opportunistic enforcer, and while Moyo had the power of the state, Zvobgo had the power of the law.

​His refusal to campaign for Mugabe in the 2002 election was his final act of defiance. He had become a ghost in the machine, a man who spoke truth to power when power no longer cared for the truth. He looked at the journalists of the day with a mix of pity and frustration, once telling them that interviews were a "test of endurance" due to their "scandalous ignorance."

​Edson Zvobgo died of cancer in 2004. He was buried at Heroes’ Acre, a place he helped design for men like himself. At his funeral, the eulogies were grand, but the silence between the words was louder. He was a man who loved his country but perhaps loved his own brilliance more. He was a poet who wrote the law, a revolutionary who became a victim of his own revolution.

​To remember Zvobgo is to remember the complexity of the Zimbabwean soul. He was a man of the church and a man of the gun, a lawyer and a poet, a builder of systems and a seeker of freedom. He once told a group of students to study hard until they became like their teachers, their lecturers, the president, "and then myself."

​The tragedy is that the country he helped birth never quite caught up to his vision, or perhaps, it caught up to his mistakes all too well. He remains a towering figure of what might have been - the brilliant enigma who taught us that the law is only as good as the men who wield it. 

He died a member of the party he could no longer recognise, a lion confined within the very walls he had built, watching the sun set on a vision he had shaped with brilliance - and one that ultimately outpaced the man himself. 

​#Zimbabwe #EdsonZvobgo #AfricanHistory #ZANUPF #LiberationHeroes #Masvingo #PoliticalTragedy

It is a great pity that his talent was wasted on building a dictatorship when it should have been used to build a democracy!

Chamisa is corrupt and incompetent and, per se, irrelevant. Still relevant because he has millions brain dead followers. W Mukori

 An explosive debate on Nelson Chamisa's return to active politics is set to take place on 12 February 2026 at 5:30 pm, featuring prominent voices from journalism, law, activism, and academia. The discussion, titled "Zimbabwe's Dance Floor: The Chamisa Factor in Zimbabwean Politics," will be moderated by Professor Ibbo Mandaza.

Panelists include veteran journalist Hopewell Chin'ono, activist and law lecturer Munyaradzi Gwisayi, academic Chipo Dendere, and lawyers Brighton Mutebuka and Agency Gumbo.

Chamisa is corrupt, incompetent, a liar and a conman; there is a mountain of evidence to prove it. And, per se, he has lost all political credibility and relevance. The only reason he is still on the political stage is the millions of the so called Chamisa chete chete brigade members. They are brain dead and so none of the mountain of evidence of Chamisa being corrupt, incompetent, etc. mean anything to them. 

Chamisa lied about plugging vote rigging loop hole to con his followers to participate in the flawed elections. It was an idiotic lie but only to those who some common sense, the brigade members have none. 

The members received the explanation that the consequences of participating in the flawed elections in their millions gave Zanu PF legitimacy and perpetuate the nation’s suffering with blank faces. It was all water off a duck’s back. 

To the Chamisa chete chete brigade members, he is a demigod who can do no wrong. And all this mountain of evidence that Chamisa is corrupt, incompetent, etc. is a mountain of lies from people who hate and are jealous of Chamisa’s popularity. 

How anyone can consider a mere mortal a demigod in this day and age beggars belief. And yet in Zimbabwe we have millions who do and, to crown it all, we have granted them the vote. 

Universal suffrage in a country where a significant proportion of the electorate are ignorant and naive they are easily conned again and again to do stupid things is a curse. And to crown it all, we have a class of ruling elite from both side of the political divide who are circling like vulture to exploit the feeble minded voters when they should be educating them! 

Chamisa left the political dancing floor soon after the 2023 elections fearing he would not get away with his idiotic strategic ambiguity nonsense that allowed Sengezo Tshabangu to wrestle control of CCC from him, the brazen lying about plugging vote rigging loop holes, the blasphemous evocation of God’s name to back his lies and even the damning consequences of giving Zanu PF legitimacy. He was pleasantly surprised few even noticed and his brigade members were begging him to come back. 

The temptation for Chamisa to come back and reclaim his demigod throne was irresistible. And so he is back for more of the same bulls**t! 

The bottom line is Chamisa will con his followers to participate in flawed 2028 elections with the same tragic consequences. Unless, unless we can break the intellectual barrier so the Chamisa chete chete brigade members finally see Chamisa for who he is - a corrupt, incompetent, a liar and conman; not the demigod they think he is. 

This is easier said than done especially when many of those fighting off Chamisa are fighting for his throne and not to educate the brain dead followers. They have been on the political stage together with Chamisa and they too have exploited the ignorant voters and not educate them. 

Chombo a silent Zim billionaire. No wonder these thugs have killed so they can continue to loot!

 Chombo a silent Zim billionaire

On the matrimonial assets, Mrs Chombo says she signed a post-nuptial agreement stating that they will share 50 percent of all properties acquired — whether held personally or in proxy — during the subsistence of their marriage.

She averred that on top of fixed assets including a borehole, generator, coldroom, it will be just for Minister Chombo to pay a monthly maintenance of US$2 000 until her death or re-marriage.

She also wants the court to award her 15 of the family vehicles that include:

NB The following items are less than 50% they are actually what Mrs Chombo wants.

4 Toyota Land Cruisers

3 Mercedes Benzes

Mahindra

2 Nissan Wolfs,

1 Toyota Vigo,

1 Mazda BT-50,

1 Bus

1 Nissan Hardbody

1 Toyota Hilux

Mrs Chombo is also claiming other properties that include:

2 Glen View houses

2 flats in Queensdale,

A property in Katanga Township,

Stand Number 1037 Mount Pleasant Heights

4 Norton business stands

3 Chinhoyi business stands,

4 Banket business stands,

1 commercial stand in Epworth,

2 residential stands in Chirundu

4 commercial stands in Kariba

1 stand in Ruwa

1 stand in Chinhoyi,

2 stands in Mutare

2 stands in Binga.

4 stands in Victoria Falls

1 stand in Zvimba Rural

Chitungwiza (two residential and two commercial stands)

Beitbridge (four stands),

20 stands in Crow Hill, Borrowdale

10 stands in Glen Lorne,

2 flats at Eastview Gardens (B319 and B320)

1 flat at San Sebastian Flats in the Avenues, Harare

Number 79 West Road, Avondale.

Greendale house

Number 36 Cleveland Road, Milton Park

Number 135 Port Road, Norton,

2 Bulawayo houses.

Number 18 Cuba Rd, Mount Pleasant

Number 45 Basset Crescent, Alexandra Park,

2 Chegutu houses

1Glen Lorne house (Harare)

2 houses (Victoria Falls).

Stand along Simon Mazorodze Road,

Norton (one stand)

Avondale (two stands)

365 Beverly House (one stand)

Bulawayo (three stands),

Mica Point Kariba (one stand).

She further wants the court to share farming equipment at New Allan Grange Farm including three tractors, two new combine harvesters, two boom sprayers and two engines.

She is also seeking an order compelling Minister Chombo to cede to her shares in the family's 10 companies including Dickest, Hamdinger, Landberry and Track in Security Company.

Mrs Chombo, in her court papers, is also claiming cattle at Darton Farm, shared chicken runs, pigsties, a shop, grinding mill, house, mills, tractors, lorries, six trucks, five of which are non-runners, four trailers (three non-runners) and one truck.

She added that other interests were the Mvurwi Mine, hunting safari lodges in Chiredzi, Hwange, Magunje and Chirundu as well as properties in South Africa.

No wonder these Zanu PF have killed just to remain in power so they can continue to loot!

In any serious democratic tradition, political leadership is strengthened—not weakened—by scrutiny. We are failed state for lack of it! W Mukori

 @ Hopewell Chin’ono

“ Zimbabwe yakazara madofo!”

Man is supposed to be a creature of reason but when one keeps repeating the foolishness of participating in flawed elections to perpetuate the Zanu PF dictatorship and their own suffering for 46 years and counting then you know you really are dealing with a creature of a lesser God!

@ Dr Sibangilizwe Moyo

In any serious democratic tradition, political leadership is strengthened—not weakened—by scrutiny. Yet, in contemporary Zimbabwean opposition politics, criticism has increasingly been recast as betrayal, enquiry as hostility, and analysis as malice.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the reaction to those who seek to interrogate Nelson Chamisa’s attempted return to the political arena.

Those who have genuinely sought to understand the rationale, timing, and strategic coherence of Chamisa’s re-entry into Zimbabwean politics have often been met not with reasoned counter-argument but with abuse and ridicule from self-proclaimed supporters.

This defensive posture is both surprising and deeply troubling. It reflects not confident…

If the truth be said Zimbabwe has never had this “serious democratic tradition”. We have always preferred the easy life, go along to get along and, better still if you cannot beat them joint them. This has now been hard wired into our political culture it is hard to uproot!

Chombo is luck to get his farm back. Chamisa will not be so luck is he fails to deliver Zanu PF legitimacy in 2028! W Mukori

 Former Finance minister and ex–Zanu-PF politburo member Ignatius Chombo has regained control of his Allan Grange Farm in Raffingora after the Supreme Court ruled that the government's cancellation of his 99-year lease was unlawful.

In a decisive judgment, the apex court overturned a High Court ruling that had upheld the state's move to cancel Chombo's lease in order to reallocate part of the property to his estranged wife, Mashonaland West Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Marian Chombo, and other occupants.

The dispute arose after the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement issued a notice in 2021 terminating Chombo's lease, citing powers to repossess land for purposes "beneficial to the public." The state relied on Clause 20 of the lease agreement, which allows repossession in the interests of public safety, order or public benefit.

However, Chombo's legal team, led by Professor Lovemore Madhuku, argued that the lease could only be terminated under Clause 22.1, which sets out specific grounds such as breach of contract or failure to pay rent.

Writing for the bench, Justice Joseph Musakwa found that the High Court had "grossly misdirected itself" by permitting the lands minister to invoke Clause 20 as a "catch-all" power to cancel the lease. The court held that reallocating land to resolve a private matrimonial dispute between former spouses did not amount to a "public purpose.”

There is an important lesson to be learned here: whatever you get from Zanu PF is yours as long as you you continue to please the regime. So opposition leaders like Chamisa, Biti Ncube, Tsvangirai, etc. who got their farms from Zanu PF because they sold out on implementing the democratic reforms during the GNU have been participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy just to keep their farms. 

Some of the MDC/CCC sell outs (names withheld to protect the guilty) have had to quit politics in a huff when the evidence of their selling out was too much to hide. They have since returned to the political dancing floor, keeping their two farms and all the other goodies depends on it. 

The said sell-out lied about plugging vote rigging loop holes to con millions to participating in flawed 2023 elections give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. He is expected to do the same again in 2028! A Herculean assignment given the penny has finally dropped in many of the brain dead Chamisa chete chete brigade members; they KNOW Chamisa lied and conned them to participate in flawed 2023 elections. 

Mark my words Chamisa will regret coming back by the end of this assignment because his political credibility will be mud! Not that the Zanu PF thugs care, they use you and when you stop to be useful they discard you like used toilet paper!