Inside Zanu PF’s 2030 plot: A clear and present danger to the constitution

The Standard article of 7 December 2025, in which ZANU PF political commissar Munyaradzi Machacha confirms that draft constitutional amendments to extend President Mnangagwa’s term of office will soon be gazetted, removes any remaining doubt.

What many Zimbabweans feared is now openly admitted: there is a deliberate project to manipulate the Constitution so that one man stays in power beyond 2028.

Machacha’s own words are revealing. He confirms that:

The Minister of Justice is already working on draft amendments to give effect to the ZANU PF resolution to extend Mr Mnangagwa’s tenure to 2030;

The ruling party intends to avoid a referendum and push the changes through Parliament, where it claims a contrived two-thirds majority manufactured through the misconduct of the Speakers office and manipulation of state institutions, and

This is to be treated as a “parliamentary and technical odyssey”, not as a matter of fundamental constitutional principle.

This admission is breathtaking in its arrogance and deeply dangerous to our democracy.

First, the Constitution belongs to the people, not to a faction of a party.

It was adopted in 2013 after a national referendum in which millions of citizens – ZANU PF supporters and opponents alike – voted for a new social contract that limits presidential power and restores regular, credible elections.

Section 158 requires general elections to be held every five years, and Section 328 entrenches term limits and prohibits an incumbent President from benefiting from any amendment to those limits unless strict referendum requirements are met.

You cannot lawfully:

Change the length of the presidential term to benefit the current incumbent;

Postpone the 2028 election to 2030; or

Extend President Mnangagwa’s time in office without triggering Section 328(7) and the people’s right to decide through a referendum – and even then, the sitting President cannot simply award himself extra years.

Second, term-limit extensions do not stabilise nations, they divide them.

The attempt to re-package this as a “stabilising shift” or a cure for “electoral fatigue” is dishonest. Across Africa, term-limit removal has fuelled conflict, repression and economic decline, not stability or prosperity. Benin is a recent case in point.

Zimbabwe’s future is constitutionalism, not constitutional manipulation. Our problem is not too many elections; it is too little respect for the rules that govern them.

Third, this manoeuvre exposes the real crisis in ZANU PF: a succession battle dressed up as national interest.

Those who failed to manage succession under Robert Mugabe now seek to avoid it altogether under Emmerson Mnangagwa. Zimbabweans did not remove Mugabe in 2017 only to usher in a new form of open-ended rule in 2025.

Let me be clear:

Any attempt to extend President Mnangagwa’s tenure beyond 2028 – whether by changing dates, changing the term length, or removing term limits – is a direct attack on the 2013 Constitution and on the sovereign will of the people who adopted it.

It is a clear and present danger to our constitutional order.

My call

1. To President Mnangagwa:

You took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not ZANU PF resolutions. You must publicly and unequivocally reject any amendment designed to benefit your tenure and affirm that elections will be held in 2028 as required by law.

2. To Members of Parliament:

You are representatives of the people, not voting machines for a partisan agenda. Any MP who supports this amendment will be complicit in dismantling term limits and must be held accountable by their constituents.

3. To constitutional bodies, churches, labour, business and civil society:

This is the time to speak clearly. Silence in the face of an attempted constitutional coup is complicity. The Constitution is the last shield between citizens and raw, unconstrained power.

4. To SADC and the African Union:

Zimbabwe cannot preach democracy abroad while dismantling it at home. The region must insist that term limits and regular elections – the very standards set in SADC and AU instruments – are respected in practice, not only on paper.

Finally, to the citizens of Zimbabwe:

The Constitution is not a hurdle to prosperity – it is the foundation of it. Those telling you that this is for stability are hiding behind a finger; they are the loudest proponents of the 2030 Agenda and fear an informed, organised citizenry that stands by its supreme law.

We ended one-man rule once before. We must not allow it to return through the back door of a fraudulent “technical amendment”.

Zimbabwe’s future will be built by citizens who defend their Constitution – calmly, firmly and consistently – until this 2030 project is defeated.

This is a statement issued by Senator Jameson Zvidzai Timba