By Samuel Musarika
The suggestion that Zimbabwe’s Constitution could be amended to extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term has triggered predictable outrage. The language used by Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has not helped. Declaring that only God’s laws are immutable is theatrically reckless and constitutionally crude.
But strip away the theatrics, and a harder question remains. Not whether constitutional term limits matter, they do, but whether changing leadership now would materially improve Zimbabwe’s situation.
Uncomfortably, the answer may be no.
The first reason is the absence of a credible opposition. Zimbabwe does not currently have an opposition that looks remotely ready to govern. Fragmentation, ego battles and ideological incoherence dominate opposition politics. If parties cannot unite themselves, it is unrealistic to expect them to unite a deeply polarised country.
This is not praise for ZANU PF. It is a statement of comparative reality. Like it or not, ZANU PF remains the only nationally cohesive political structure in the country. Leadership transitions do not happen in vacuums. They happen within systems. Right now, there is no alternative system capable of absorbing power without chaos.
Second, Zimbabwe is stable. Not prosperous, not thriving, but stable. Projects are ongoing. Institutions, however imperfect, are functioning. There is no mass unrest, no civil conflict, no collapse of order. Changing leadership in such a context is not automatically virtuous. It carries real risk, especially when the likely successors are themselves locked in factional battles.
Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga looms large in these succession calculations, and the internal fear among business-linked elites says less about constitutionalism and more about unresolved power struggles within the ruling party. Stability, however fragile, is still stability.
Third, elections are expensive. This is an unfashionable argument, but an honest one. Zimbabwe is rebuilding from decades of economic damage. Elections drain state resources, distract institutions and frequently produce contested outcomes that require even more money to manage. In a country still grappling with debt, infrastructure decay and service delivery challenges, bleeding scarce resources for an election that changes little may be an indulgence.
None of this means constitutionalism should be discarded casually. The 2013 Constitution was hard-won, and constitutional manipulation has a dangerous history in Africa. Legal experts such as Lovemore Madhuku are right to warn that amending term limits or extending parliamentary life is procedurally complex and politically risky.
But politics is not theology. Constitutions are social contracts, not sacred texts. They exist to serve societies, not to paralyse them when circumstances are unfavourable.
The real danger is not amendment per se. It is amendment without honesty. If the case for extension is stability, continuity and cost-saving, then it should be argued openly, not smuggled through slogans about inheritance or divine authority.
Zimbabwe’s problem has never been a shortage of elections. It has been a shortage of credible alternatives, disciplined governance and institutional trust.
Until those fundamentals change, insisting on rotation for its own sake may satisfy principle while worsening reality.
Extending Mnangagwa’s term may not be ideal.
But in the current political landscape, it may be the least disruptive option available.
And sometimes, in fragile states, politics is not about ideal choices.
It is about choosing the option that breaks the least.
