“2023 Elections May Be The Last Elections Zimbabwe Ever Had”

Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Douglas Coltart has described President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s signing of Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 as a “constitutional coup” that betrays promises made to Zimbabweans.

Speaking to Channel Africa’s Peter Ndoro after the president signed the bill into law, Coltart said the move “confirmed that he had lied to the people of Zimbabwe and to the world”.

“He’d broken promises repeatedly made that he would not do precisely what he has just done by participating in this extension to his term,” Coltart said.

Coltart argued the president and parliament had “collectively participated in a constitutional coup to overthrow the fundamental principles of our constitution”. He said the amendments “undermine the gains we made as a nation in 2013 when this constitution came into effect” and “take us back to a very dark and dangerous system”.

“In many ways [it is] an even worse system than was there prior to the constitutional reforms of 2013,” he added.

Coltart outlined what he called the primary effects of the amendments.

The first, he said, is the extension of the presidential and parliamentary term until at least 2030.

An “ambiguity” inserted during the amendment process, which opposition MPs tried to close, “potentially opens the door to the perpetual extension of the president and parliament’s term… till kingdom come”. “Effectively abolishing elections or making elections no longer mandatory,” he said.

Coltart argued that the move contradicts the constitution, which bars incumbents from benefiting from extensions to their time in office. Such a change requires a referendum, which has not taken place.

“The president has signed the bill in violation of the constitution,” he said.

Since 1987, Zimbabweans have directly elected the president. The amendment shifts this to a parliamentary system. Proponents compare it to South Africa, but Coltart said the comparison fails because other changes mean “those elections of the members of parliament will not be done democratically”.

He said the president will now have “absolute control over the appointment of key electoral bodies” that were previously run by an independent commission.

Coupled with the president’s new power to appoint senators directly, the reforms mean “the ruling party will be able to retain power with about 30% of the vote”. “That is not a democratic reform. That is authoritarian consolidation,” Coltart said.

Coltart said the 2013 constitution introduced a public nomination process for judges, with the Judicial Service Commission compiling a list for the president. “All of that has been scrapped,” he said. “The president has been given unfettered power to appoint every judge in the country, essentially giving the executive control over the appointment of the judiciary.”

“Each and every single one of the reforms… is about consolidating power for the president and stripping the people of Zimbabwe of any mechanisms of accountability,” Coltart said.

He acknowledged the changes make a legal challenge difficult, but argued the law on referendums is “black and white”.

Coltart asserted that the Constitutional Court has already ruled that section 95, dealing with the president’s term, is a term limit provision subject to section 328(7), which says incumbents cannot benefit from extensions.

“There are still reasonable prospects of success that the judiciary will stand up on that issue,” he said.

But Coltart warned Zimbabweans not to rely solely on the courts. “We cannot simply sit back and hope that the courts will save us from this constitutional coup,” he said. “We need to use those rights now to defend our constitution which is under attack.”

Addressing government arguments that the amendment only changes the length of a term, not the number of terms, Coltart called the line “hilarious”.

He pointed to section 328(1), which defines a term limit provision as “any provision of this constitution which limits the length of time that a person may hold office”.

“It explicitly says it’s about dealing with the length of time that a person may hold office,” he said. “The argument carries no weight whatsoever the moment one actually just opens the constitution.”

Asked whether flawed 2023 elections had paved the way, Coltart said the amendments raise a “terrifying” prospect.

“It is not unreasonable to say that those flawed 2023 elections may be the last elections that Zimbabwe ever had,” he said, citing the ambiguity that could allow parliament to forgo elections in future.

“Whether we have elections… perhaps we do have elections by the benevolence of parliament in 2030,” he said.