Civil Society organisation, Church and Civic Society Joint Forum says that the minimum Presidential age limit should come down from the current 40 years to 35 years.
The remark followed utterances made by War Veterans leader Victor Matemadanda who said that Parliament should consider raising the Presidential age limit from 40 to 52 years. This has been seen as a subtle way of blocking MDC leader Nelson Chamisa from contesting the 2023 and 2028 elections.
Church and Civic society Joint Forum National Chairperson Anglistone Sibanda condemned the War Veterans’ calls. Sibanda said
We are actually launching a counter-petition through the Constitutional Court to review the age limit down to 35 years, because we feel the Constitution gives the right to vote to everyone and on the other hand takes away the right to be voted for from people below 40, in its current state.
We have people over 35 years who do not qualify to be youths and yet do not qualify to be senators or contest the presidency, and that is an anomaly.
We cannot have the minority age group deciding for the majority. Youth are 64% of the population and war vets must just go and retire. People like Matemadanda failed to utilise the $50 000 gratuity payout they got in 1997, and they want to hold the country at ransom.
Well said. I am 57-years old. My age group has messed up our kids’ lives by collapsing a once-thriving post-colonial economy whose only blemish was that it restricted the participation of blacks. Every Zimbabwean baby born today has $1000+ debt inheritance from my wasteful and corrupt age group. Is that the maturity Matemadanda is boasting about? Let the youths dig themselves from the economic grave we buried them alive in. So I say, “No to the proposed increase in the age limit for the presidency.”
Well said! Greed and selfishness has lead us to the situation we find ourselves in. The youth believe in change whereas the “mature” have destroyed livelihoods. Unfortunately some of the electorate has been brainwashed like I was at some point.
On point. Serious, intelligent reasoning here. This is a discussion that must initiate a referendum. We failed our children. It’s now their time to determine their destiny.
The whole issue started when someone who is 40 yrs old behaved childish calling for sanctions and also inciting violence.
He was right. It will force the gray haired to respect human rights. They are now worse than the Smith regime. All over the world rogue nations are being punished by sanctioning them. Let us take this opportunity to remind Matemadanda that when most people that are currently in government today first took leadership positions, they were in most cases way younger than 40 years.
In fact, our situation in Zimbabwe right now is proof that one can have as many gray hairs as possible, but that neither translates to wisdom nor good leadership. We need sound policies to move the country forward. Unfortunately the heroes have turned themselves to zeroes because of greed and selfishness.
ED and matemadanda must fokof
Any leader in Africa now including Zimbabwe beyond 65 years labour act defined retirement age should just know, and African ans Zimbabweans should just know that these 65 plus years leaders are the first classic factor in the underdevelopment of Africa, no longer Europe anymore…..these very same leaders in Africa beyond 65 years are great cost and liability [they had their time already and just keep hanging around lousily] to Africa and forget about development and transformation in Africa and Zimbabwe as long as such old age leadership remains at the helm. In Africa, Zimbabwe and even South Africa revolutions have classically betrayed their nations by recolonizing the people they liberated as they have denied them freedom of choice declaring themselves rulers until donkies grow horns. The army- state and revolutionary parties in Africa and Zimbabwe have become the Classic Second generation of Colonizers of their own African defenseless and voiceless. United Nations and its Security Council, Africa Union, SADC have to give a new definition to the issue of independence, sovereignty, electoral processes and get to define more revealing and binding terms or reference.
David the King of Israelites who laid the first foundation of the Great Holy City of Jerusalem ruled at 17 years why 35 years so its possible to rule even at 25 years on and quite developmental and service to Africa and Zimbabwe for generation to come to just step down from power and go into retirement at 60-65 years and even earlier, because even as people don’t tell such people must know that they are compromizing generations now and in future, for their productive and innovative capacitty is well exhausted beyond 65 years. Revolutionaries in Africa, Zimbabwe and many other nations won through a struggle have shamelessly recolonized their own people they liberated formerly, driving into poverty and hopelessness as they suck them of the last drops of blood and deny them access to leadership meant to shift Africa and Zimbabwe to a superior economic level of advanced industrialized nations not middle income, time is just over.