The call for Constitutional amendments for President Mnangagwa to extend his term beyond 2028 has nothing to do with him and has not been done at his instigation, but was conceived by the revolutionary party and formed part of its Annual National People’s Conference resolutions.
Addressing Zanu
PF Mashonaland West Province Provincial Coordinating Committee members last
weekend, Politburo member, Cde Ziyambi Ziyambi, said current efforts to amend
the Constitution to extend President Mnangagwa’s term were solely a decision of
the revolutionary party’s general membership.
He said at no
time did President Mnangagwa canvass for the extension of his term and any
suggestion to that effect was preposterous given that the position of the First
Secretary was known that he was a constitutionalist.
Cde Ziyambi
said Zanu PF was pushing for an extension of the President’s term in line with
a resolution that it took at its conference in Bulawayo in October last year.
“Our plan with
resolutions is that they come from the people starting from inter-district, and
they go to the province where they are debated. Our provincial chairman takes
them to the national level and they are consolidated at the conference. Once
consolidated at the conference level, they become Zanu PF resolutions. That
point ought to be clear,” said Cde Ziyambi.
“At no time did
President Mnangagwa say he wants this or that, about the issue of 2030. It is
us as the people and general membership of Zanu PF who expressed our desire
about what we want him to do.
“Now if you
hear someone saying anything about our President that he has done this or he
intends to do that, tell them that it is not him, but it is us as the people
and as Zanu PF. He is not in the equation or this discourse.”
Cde Ziyambi
said his discussions with President Mnangagwa, whenever they meet, did not
include issues around extension of his term.
“Even if I am
to meet with him, I will tell him that ‘we are seized with our issues as the
general membership of the party which has nothing to do with you, I do not even
want to hear about your views about it,’ I do not even talk to him about it
because it is our issue.
“We are now in
the process of fulfilling our issue and desire as Zimbabweans, we now need to
be united because it’s us who have expressed this desire.
“Once we start
the programme and it goes through Parliament to amend the Constitution to
fulfil our objective, once it comes back to the people during the Referendum,
starting today let’s mobilise people telling them that Zimbabweans want
President Mnangagwa to remain in office until 2030. This is our desire as Zanu
PF.”
Zanu PF party
structures have been calling for Constitutional amendments following a
resolution at the party’s Conference in Bulawayo that was unanimously adopted.
Herald