By Samuel Musarika
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has finally said the quiet part out loud.
“I don’t go around villages announcing my travels… The king will embark on a trip if his time to travel says so.”
In one breath, the man entrusted with leading a constitutional republic exposed the imperial arrogance that has long defined his rule. No need for transparency. No regard for the people who supposedly elected him. Just a self-anointed monarch moving according to his own divine schedule. This is not leadership. This is entitlement on steroids.
Let us be crystal clear: You are not a king, Mr. President. You are a public servant whose authority derives entirely from the consent of Zimbabwean citizens. We the people are the king-makers. We do not exist to be ruled from on high or informed after the fact like loyal subjects. You do not appoint yourself. You do not rule by personal timetable. And you certainly do not get to rewrite the Constitution to overstay your welcome while sneering at those who dare ask questions.
The optics of contempt
Slipping out of the country quietly to Belarus, without the usual cabinet send-off or public notice, was already suspicious. Doing so while Parliament prepares to debate the Constitutional Amendment (No. 3) Bill, which seeks to extend your time in office until 2030, is downright insulting. The people are not fools. When a leader who is constitutionally term-limited starts behaving like royalty and pushing term extensions in the shadows, citizens are right to smell a power grab.
This “king” talk is not a slip of the tongue. It is a window into a mindset that views Zimbabweans as villagers to be managed, not citizens to be served. Mugabe thought the same way in his later years. The result was economic ruin, mass emigration, and national humiliation. Zimbabwe cannot afford a sequel.
The Truth Leaders Fear
The president is not above the people. He is below them.
In a genuine democracy, leadership exists to worship the welfare of the citizens, their prosperity, their security, their freedoms, not the other way around. Once Zimbabweans fully internalise this truth, the dynamic shifts. Leaders will campaign with humility, govern with accountability, and tremble at the prospect of disappointing the electorate. They will announce their travels, explain their deals, and justify their policies because they know power is borrowed and can be withdrawn.
The opposite is what we see today: a political class that demands reverence while delivering mediocrity. Secret trips. Constitutional sleight of hand. Empty promises of “jobs, jobs, jobs” while many young Zimbabweans still see their future on planes heading abroad.
Time to Reclaim Sovereignty
Zimbabweans, the power has always resided with you. It was your resilience that survived the disasters of the past. It is your labour that keeps the mines running and the fields producing. It is your voice, expressed at the ballot and in the public square, that must set the limits of executive power.
Mr. President, drop the royal delusions. Serve the people or step aside. The villages you dismiss are the very source of your authority. They made you. They can unmake you, not through chaos, but through the steady, unrelenting demand for a government that remembers its place.
The crown does not belong to State House. It belongs to the people of Zimbabwe. It is past time we reminded every occupant of that office exactly who the real sovereign is.
