There is no constitutional requirement for a referendum on the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill (No. 3), 2026, Professor Jonathan Moyo has said, arguing that the proposed reforms are aimed at strengthening institutions rather than benefiting individuals.
The political scientist said the debate has been clouded by what he described as a misunderstanding of constitutional terminology, particularly the distinction between term limits and election cycles.
“At the centre of this debate are claims that amending a term-limit provision necessarily triggers a referendum. This is false, in my respectful opinion,” he said during CITE’s X Space discussion on Thursday.
The Bill proposes, among other changes, extending the national electoral cycle from five to seven years and introducing the indirect election of the president through Parliament.
However, Prof Moyo rejected interpretations of Section 328(7) suggesting that any change affecting presidential tenure requires a referendum, especially if it benefits an incumbent.
“The Constitution mandates referendums only for amendments to Chapters 4 and 16 and to Section 328 itself,” he said. “There is not even one term-limit provision that falls under these parts of the Constitution.”
He said the Constitution contains 15 term-limit provisions and insisted that none of them is amended by the current Bill.
“Section 328(7) comes into play only if there is an amendment to a term-limit provision, not any other provision,” he said.
Prof Moyo argued that confusion has arisen from conflating provisions that deal generally with time and those that impose a fixed cap on tenure.
“If a provision talks about time but does not place a cap on it, then it is not a term-limit provision,” he said.
Referring to the Constitutional Court judgment in Max Mupungu v Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Others, he noted that the court distinguished between a “term”, defined as a fixed or limited period, and a “period”, which is simply a length of time.
“For a clause to qualify as a term-limit provision under Section 328(1), it must limit the length of time that a person may hold office,” he said. “All term-limit provisions guarantee specific ends; they are not open-ended or elastic.”
Prof Moyo stressed that the Bill does not amend Section 91(2), which sets out the two-term limit for the president.
“The Bill does not alter the presidential term limit, repeal it or extend it,” he said. “That section is not included in the Bill.”
Instead, he said, the amendments relate to Sections 95(2B), 143(1) and 158(1), which he described as election-cycle provisions defining the period between elections.
“They do not belong to the protected category of term-limit provisions that require a referendum,” he said.
Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has made a similar argument, saying the Bill extends the duration of electoral cycles rather than presidential term limits.
“That’s all it’s doing, elongating the election cycle from five to seven years for everyone, from councillors to the president,” he was quoted as saying by other media.
Prof Moyo said Section 328(7) would only be triggered if a term-limit provision were amended to extend the tenure of an incumbent.
“But that applies only to amendments to term-limit provisions. This Bill does not amend any,” he said.
He rejected suggestions that the reforms were designed to benefit President Emmerson Mnangagwa personally.
“The Bill is not about the president. It is about the presidency and Parliament as institutions,” he said.
To illustrate his point, Prof Moyo cited succession scenarios.
“If a president resigns or dies two years into a five-year cycle, the successor serves only the remainder of that cycle,” he said. “That shows the period belongs to the office, not the office-holder.”
The same principle applies, he said, to parliamentary by-elections, where successful candidates serve only the remainder of the existing term.
For Prof Moyo, extending the electoral cycle is intended to address what he described as a “permanent election mode” that has deepened polarisation and weakened long-term planning.
“The Bill lengthens the election cycle from five to seven years to break the toxicity of perpetual campaigning,” he said.
He also argued that having Parliament elect the president would strengthen multi-party democracy.
“Parliamentary election of the president will shield the office from the divisiveness of direct elections,” he said. “It will promote national unity through representation.”
Concluding his remarks, Prof Moyo described the reforms as a bold attempt to correct structural weaknesses left unresolved in 2013.
“It signals a historic transformation that reconciles Zimbabwe’s troubled past with a more stable future,” he said.
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