HARARE – A Bulawayo-based activist and a civic group have filed an application at the Constitutional Court seeking to stop President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s bid to extend his rule to 2030 — but opposition figures and insiders suspect the case could be part of a calculated plan to legitimise the controversial project.
Mbuso Fuzwayo, director of the pressure group Ibhetshu LikaZulu, and the organisation itself filed the application through Advocate Method Ndlovu instructed by Nqobani Sithole of Sithole Law Chambers, arguing that Zanu PF’s resolutions to extend Mnangagwa’s tenure violate the constitution.
The respondents include Zanu PF, the Minister of Justice, the Speaker of Parliament, the Attorney General, and the President.
In their application, Fuzwayo and Ibhetshu LikaZulu argue that Zanu PF’s 2024 and 2025 conference resolutions — which directed government to amend the constitution to extend Mnangagwa’s term beyond 2028 — infringe citizens’ political rights under sections 56 and 67 of the constitution, which guarantee equality before the law and the right to free and regular elections.
They contend that the proposed amendments to sections 95(2)(b) and 143(1), setting presidential and parliamentary term limits, cannot be made without a national referendum as required under section 328(7).
“The resolutions explicitly direct not only the party but also the government to initiate constitutional amendments as a matter of urgency,” Fuzwayo says in his founding affidavit. “This creates a real and imminent threat of unconstitutional action.”
He also cites statements by Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, who has expressed government’s readiness to implement the resolutions, calling this “a clear danger to the rule of law.”
But some legal and political observers fear the application could be what they call a “friendly challenge” — designed to be dismissed by the court and, in the process, set a binding precedent that the 2030 extension is lawful.
“This tactic has been used before,” a lawyer told ZimLive. “A seemingly independent applicant goes to court to challenge what the state actually wants. The court dismisses the case, and that dismissal becomes the legal cover.”
The same method was seen in 2016, when a University of Zimbabwe law student, Romeo Taombera Zibani, filed an application opposing the Judicial Service Commission’s Chief Justice interviews — a move widely believed to have been orchestrated to pave the way for a politically favoured candidate.
Human rights lawyer Tendai Biti said he was “shocked to learn that the regime through its proxies have proceeded with its phantom application to aid and abate the 2030 agenda.”
He added: “This is proof that the 2030 cabal is unrelenting in its quest to mutilate the constitution and create a dynasty . We guarantee the regime that we will defend the constitution.”
The apparent split within Ibhetshu LikaZulu over the case deepened on Thursday after its secretary general, Gifford Mehluli Sibanda, resigned in protest.
In his resignation letter to Fuzwayo, Sibanda said he was stepping down “after deep reflection on the current direction and approach the organisation has taken in the struggle against Zanu PF,” adding that it “diverges from the foundational values that Ibhetshu LikaZulu has long stood for.”
He said he would continue to fight for “restorative justice, human rights, and democracy,” but could no longer do so under the group’s current leadership.
The Constitutional Court is yet to set a date for hearing the application. – ZimLive
