The new Amendment Bill (No. 3) of 2026 is Zanu PF’s latest attempt to manage Zanu PF’s internal succession crisis by mutilating the national constitution, Dr Justice Mavedzenge, a comparative constitutional law scholar and international human rights lawyer, has said.
Dr Mavedzenge added that the central objective of the proposed Amendment Bill is to extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term of office without a referendum or seeking approval from citizens, in violation of Section 328 of the Constitution.
Making a detailed legal critique of the proposed amendment bill, Dr Mavedzenge said it was both legally and politically problematic, while dismissing several of the proposed changes as deliberate distractions.
“There are a raft of propositions that are contained in this constitutional bill. It is my respectful view that a lot of those other proposed amendments are just an attempt to divert our attention from the real thing,” he said.
“The real thing is that the Bill seeks to extend the president’s term of office without holding a referendum.”
The Bill proposes amending Section 95(2B) of the Constitution to increase the presidential term from five years to seven years and to allow the incumbent to remain in office beyond 2028 until 2030.
Dr Mavedzenge said the issue is not merely political but fundamentally constitutional.
“President Mnangagwa and his and the proponents of this bill implement the Constitution without following due process,” he said, rejecting claims that the amendment is motivated by governance efficiency or harmonisation concerns.
Instead, Dr Mavedzenge argued that the real driver of the Bill was internal ruling party politics.
“The purpose is to manage Zanu PF’s internal succession crisis. So our national constitution is being mutilated, just as we saw how the constitutional institutions were subverted under President Mugabe in order to deal again with an internal succession battle. And that led to the 2017 military coup,” he said, referring to the events that ended the rule of the late former President Robert Mugabe.
“I think it is important for Zimbabweans to keep that at the back of their minds, that the real purpose behind this bill, this planned constitutional coup is to simply manage the internal Zanu PF succession processes.”
Dr Mavedzenge centred his argument on Section 328(7) of the Constitution, which sets out when constitutional amendments must be subjected to a referendum.
“Section 328 subsection 7 of the Constitution lays down a very clear framework for deciding whether an amendment to the Constitution should be done after a referendum or not,” he said.
“The framework is this, if an amendment seeks to A, change a term limit provision, and B, has the effect of extending the length of time that a person may hold a position, then the amendment must be subjected to a national referendum and cannot benefit the incumbent.”
The Bill ‘clearly’ satisfies both these conditions spelt out in Section 328(7), said Dr Mavedzenge.
“The bill presented before us seeks to amend Section 95 subsection 2B of the Constitution by increasing the term of office for the president from five to seven years,” he said.
“This is not my interpretation. It’s what is written in the bill, to increase the term of office for the president from five to seven years and to allow the current president to continue in office beyond 2028 until 2030. This is what is in the bill.”
The central dispute, he explained, turns on whether Section 95(2B) is a “term limit provision” within the meaning of Section 328.
“The short answer is yes,” Dr Mavedzenge said.
The constitutional expert said much of the public debate had been clouded by “propaganda,” meant to “precisely mislead and confuse people” by suggesting that only Section 91(2) constitutes a term limit provision.
“Section 328 defines a term limit provision as follows. And I want to quote, because I think when we have a situation where people are attaching their own definitions to things, we need to quote the exact provisions of the constitution,” Dr Mavedzenge said as he turned to the constitutional text.
“A term limit provision is a provision of this Constitution which limits the length of time that a person may hold or occupy office.”
He stressed that a term limit is not solely about the number of terms but the length of time.
“It is critical to clarify that a term limit provision is not about the number of times that a person may hold office necessarily, but the length of time that a person may occupy the office,” he said.
“Section 95(2B) defines the length of time the president can occupy that office. It sets the term at five years. I don’t know why there’s confusion about this.”
To drive the point home, Dr Mavedzenge said if you ask any Zimbabwean in any village, or street when elections in the country are due, they will tell you every five years.
“Why do we hold elections every five years? It is because the term of office for the President is limited by Section 95(2B) to five years,” he said.
He rejected arguments that Section 91(2) of the Constitution governs the five-year cycle.
“We do not hold elections every five years because of Section 91(2) because there is nothing in Section 91(2) which says elections are due every five years,” he said.
Section 91 of the Constitution is titled “Qualifications for Election as President and Vice President” while Section 91(2) states: A person is disqualified for election as President or Vice-President if he or she has already held office as President under this Constitution for two terms, whether continuous or not, and for the purpose of this subsection three or more years’ service is deemed to be a full term,
“That particular provision goes on to say a person is disqualified for election as president if he or she has already served as president for two terms,” Mavedzenge explained.
“But two terms of what? You can only answer that question if you go to Section 95, which is the matter of presidential term limits.”
He argued that Section 91(2) merely elaborates on the two-term cap and clarifies how a “term” is calculated.
“Section 91(2) is explaining and expanding on the term limit that is defined in Section 95,” he said.
“So Section 95 is the cathedral for presidential term limits in Zimbabwe. It is the primary provision that limits the term of office.”
Section 95 of the constitution, titled Term of office of President and Vice-Presidents reads:
95 (1) The term of office of the President or a Vice-President commences on the day he or she is sworn in and assumes office in terms of section 94(1)(a) or 94(3).
(2) The term of office of the President or a Vice-President extends until
(a) he or she resigns or is removed from office; or
(b) following an election, he or she is declared to be re-elected or a new President is declared to be elected; and, except as otherwise provided in this constitution, their terms of office are five years and coterminous with the life of Parliament.
Dr Mavedzenge, said to suggest otherwise, is to ignore both constitutional structure and judicial precedent.
“It does not need, in Professor Moyo’s language, a rocket scientist, to know that, because we have elections every five years. The President cannot go beyond five years,” he said.
He cited jurisprudence from the Constitutional Court to buttress his argument.
“In Max Mupungu versus Minister of Justice, the Constitutional Court has already identified Section 95 as a term limit provision at pages 50 and 51 of the judgment,” he said.
Dr Mavedzengee also referenced a previous case of Jealous Mawarire versus the President of Zimbabwe, then Robert Mugabe.
“In that matter, the Constitutional Court again indicated that the term of office is limited to five years. It is limited to five years. So you can’t create any fiction around that in light of existing jurisprudence in the country, but also practice.”
For him, the combined effect of constitutional text, structure, and case law leaves little room for ambiguity.
Beyond the legal arguments, Mavedzenge warned of the broader democratic consequences of amending term limits without popular approval.
“When people are planning a coup, they first deploy propaganda, precisely to mislead and confuse people,” he said.
“We have seen this in Zimbabwe. Whenever electoral coups have been planned, the first attempt was to criminalise opposition. The first attempt was to mislead Zimbabweans into believing that the opposition is some kind of a creature that should never be allowed to take over power.”
He drew parallels with the narrative that preceded the 2017 military intervention.
“Fast forward 2017, when a coup was being planned, we were told that the purpose of this whole operation is to remove criminals around the president. The same tactics are being deployed here.”
Describing the proposed amendment as a “planned constitutional coup,” Mavedzenge said the Constitution risks being reduced to an instrument of factional power struggles rather than a supreme law reflecting the will of the people.
“Our national constitution is being mutilated and if we normalise this kind of manipulation, we undermine the very foundation of constitutionalism, that those who exercise public power must do so within strict legal limits,” he said.
Support CITE’s fearless, independent journalism. Your donation helps us amplify community voices, fight misinformation, and hold power to account. Help keep the truth alive. Donate today