Mangwana Defends ZANU PF’s Plan For Parliament To Elect President

Ndavaningi Mangwana, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, has said there is nothing wrong with Zimbabwe having its President elected by Parliament rather than directly by citizens at the ballot box, arguing that other countries, such as South Africa and Botswana, follow a similar system.

Mangwana made the remarks after Zimbabwe’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a draft Constitutional Amendment Bill that seeks to extend presidential and parliamentary terms from five to seven years.

The Bill proposes to remove the current system of directly electing the President by popular vote. Instead, the President would be chosen by Parliament.

Mangwana added that Botswana and South Africa, where the President is elected by Parliament, are regarded as stable democracies, and therefore, there is nothing wrong if Zimbabwe adopts a similar approach. Wrote Mangwana on X:

“Botswana, lauded for its stability and governance, elects its president not by direct popular vote, but through its Parliament.

“South Africa, with its world-celebrated constitution, uses the exact same method: its president is chosen by the National Assembly.

“Yet, when Zimbabwe discusses moving toward a similar parliamentary-based system, the very same commentators who praise Botswana and South Africa suddenly decry it as ‘undemocratic’.

“The mechanism is identical. The reaction is not. The inconsistency speaks volumes about perception, narrative, and perhaps, a different set of rules for different players.”

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s spokesperson, George Charamba, said that directly electing a president through the first-past-the-post system in Africa often leads to politically motivated violence. He said:

“HAS ANYONE POSED TO REFLECT: that our electoral politics generate polarising DISPUTES at the level of electing a President?

“Not just in Zimbabwe, but also in the Region, most notably in Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda.

“The proposed amendment now means that level no longer is a flashpoint of our electoral politics, to the extent the President may be voted by Parliament, and to the extent the fate of the nation now gets decided at a more dispersed level to do with contestation at parliamentary seat level.

“Also we will not have persons who waste the Nation’s time by declaring themselves presidential candidates when they have nil following, party machinery or parliamentary representation.”

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