Zanu PF conned not just povo for umpteenth time with amendment No. 3 but Catholic Bishops too! W Mukori

@ Catholic Bishops

The Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCBC) has strongly criticised the proposed Constitutional Amendment No. 3, warning that the changes threaten democratic principles and undermine the supremacy of the people's will.

In a pastoral statement titled "In Defence of Truth, Justice, and the Voice of the People", the bishops said the amendment poses a serious challenge to the foundations of national governance, trust, and the common good.

Quoting scripture - "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" (Mark 8:36) - the bishops urged Zimbabweans to reflect deeply on the implications of altering the Constitution without broad public consent.

"Our Constitution is more than law; it is a solemn covenant, born from the overwhelming will of Zimbabweans in 2013, embodying our collective hopes for justice, unity, peace, and prosperity," the bishops said.

They emphasised that the voice of the people must remain supreme, noting that all legitimate authority flows from citizens, who entrusted leaders with a five‑year mandate ending in 2028.

"Proposals that shift power from the electorate to a few - such as weakening direct presidential elections, extending terms without fresh consent, or bypassing safeguards like referendums - diminish this sacred trust," the statement read.

The bishops reminded President Emmerson Mnangagwa of his own oft‑quoted phrase, "the voice of the people is the voice of God", warning that sidelining public participation risks fracturing national unity and the spirit of ubuntu/unhu.

They expressed deep concern that the amendment would consolidate power in the Executive by:

- Removing direct presidential elections, distancing leaders from the people's mandate.  

- Extending terms of office from five to seven years without seeking a new mandate.  

- Circumventing Section 328(7), which prevents incumbents from benefiting from term extensions without a referendum.  

- Increasing presidential control over judicial and prosecutorial appointments, risking  political interference.  

- Weakening electoral integrity by transferring key functions away from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).  

- Allowing traditional leaders to act in a partisan manner, altering their constitutional role as neutral community custodians.

The bishops warned that weakening checks and balances threatens peace, justice, and public confidence in national institutions.

"Peace endures not by force, but through fair, transparent, and independent institutions," they said, adding that captured institutions "divide rather than unite".

Addressing Members of Parliament and Senators directly, the bishops urged them to resist political pressure and uphold the common good.

"You bear a sacred duty before God and the nation: to govern for the common good, not personal or partisan gain," they wrote, quoting Matthew 10:28 to encourage moral courage.

The ZCBC concluded by calling for truth, justice, and fidelity to the Constitution as the nation debates the proposed amendment.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!”

The proverb means it is better to be content with what you have than to risk losing everything by seeking to get more.

Zanu PF is a party of ruthless thugs who have managed to retain their iron grip on absolute power by twisting this proverb by convincing the people to give up the bird in hand for 200, not just 2 a hundred or even a thousand times that. 

You can fool SOME people ALL the time but you cannot fool ALL people ALL the time!

Well Zanu PF and MDC/CCC leaders have managed to fool the overwhelming majority of our people for 46 and 26 years and counting respectively. Even some of the Zimbabweans, the Catholic Bishops for example, one would think should KNOW better have been fooled.

The Catholic Bishops condemned Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections as flawed because Zanu PF blatantly rigged the process. SADC and AU election observers too condemned the election process as flawed and illegal. 

“Conclusion 13.3

The SEOM (SADC Election Observer Mission) noted that, as detailed in sections 6 and 7 of this report, some aspects of the Harmonised Elections fell short of the requirements of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Electoral Act, and the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections (2021),” stated the SEOM report.

Mnangagwa and his regime ARE illegitimate because they did not get the people’s mandate to rule Zimbabwe. This is the bird in hand!

Mnangagwa did not want the nation to dwell on the rigged 2023 elections and so he introduced the ED2030 Agenda in which he was to extend his stay in office beyond the maximum two term limits. The 100 000 birds in the bush! It worked!

The irony is if the people had pursued the issue of rigged 2023 elections to its full conclusion, ie have Mnangagwa and his regime declared illegitimate, they would not be ED2030 Agenda/ Constitutional amendment No. 3 to worry about.

It is bad enough the ordinary Zimbabweans were easily conned with Amendment No. 3 into forgetting Zanu PF is illegitimate yet again, but not the Catholic Bishops too. Fcuk me! 

The Zanu PF vote rigging juggernaut in full swing. And Zanu PF still has its trump card - it can and will blatantly rig the process! The nation would have had a fighting chance pursuing the legitimacy battle following the rigged 2023 elections.

Stopping amendment No. 3 will stop Mnangagwa staying on beyond 2028 but will not stop the regime rigging 2028 elections and imposing another Zanu PF dictator. The worst case scenario is that the amendment sails through and the Zanu PF regime gains even more dictatorial powers and consolidate its iron grip on power. And all because the nation did not have the common sense to focus on the fight to deny Zanu PF legitimacy for rigging 2023 elections! 

Zimbabwe is a failed state because we have failed to deal with curse of war veterans wielding a veto! Mukori W

 @ Gabriel Munyati

In the high-stakes theatre of Zimbabwean  politics, silence is rarely empty; it is usually heavy with the scent of gunpowder and historical memory.

 

For months, a quiet but perceptible tremor has been radiating from the senior ranks of the liberation war veterans and retired military commanders. Their sudden re-entry into the open  political debate regarding the "2030 agenda" is not a coincidence of civic engagement. It is a calculated signal. 

As President Emmerson Mnangagwa's supporters beat the drums for a third term or a constitutional extension of his mandate, the guardians of the barracks are reminding the nation that in Zimbabwe, power does not merely flow from the ballot box, it circulates through the security-liberation establishment that has underpinned ZANU PF since 1980.

This moment feels hauntingly familiar. It echoes the atmospheric tension of late 2017, just before the fall of Robert Mugabe. 

To understand why the "ED 2030" slogan has hit a wall of olive-drab resistance, one must look at the three deeper dynamics currently fracturing the ruling elite.

Zimbabwe's political architecture remains a house built by the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964 to 1979. 

The men who participated in the guerrilla struggle - Emmerson Mnangagwa, Constantino Chiwenga, and a cadre of retired generals - did not merely win a war; they inherited a state. 

This group formed the iron-clad coalition that executed "Operation Restore Legacy" in 2017 to remove Mugabe.

Today, that same network is remobilising, but the target has shifted. 

When retired commanders begin publicly demanding constitutional adherence and the holding of a referendum, they are not suddenly becoming champions of liberal democracy. Instead, they are signalling that the "stockholders" of the state are unhappy. 

The liberation network that installed Mnangagwa is fracturing because the current push for 2030 threatens the delicate internal consensus that governs their power-sharing arrangement.

Under the 2013 Constitution, a hard ceiling exists: a two-term presidential limit. 

For President Mnangagwa, the clock runs out in 2028.

To stay until 2030 requires more than just a party slogan; it requires a constitutional amendment that would likely necessitate a national referendum.

For the internal opposition within ZANU PF, the Constitution has become the ultimate weapon of denial. 

By insisting on "constitutionalism," these retired generals and war veterans avoid the appearance of a naked power struggle or a mutiny. 

It is a sophisticated manoeuver: they are using the law to block a person, framing their resistance as a defense of the republic's foundational documents rather than a factional feud. 

This slows the momentum of the 2030 movement, forcing the president's loyalists to fight a legal and public battle they may not be able to win without shattering the party's remaining credibility.

The parallels between today and the final years of the Mugabe era are striking. 

Then, as now, the war veterans turned their backs on the incumbent. 

Then, as now, the military began to step into the political light. 

The primary difference is that this friction is occurring much earlier in the succession cycle.

The ghost of the Mugabe succession crisis looms large over the current administration. 

The military-liberation establishment views itself as the ultimate arbiter of ZANU PF leadership. 

When senior figures begin to express "concerns" about the political timeline, it is an implicit warning that the 2017 playbook has not been lost. If the 2028 timeline is ignored, the risk of a deep, destabilising fracture within the ruling coalition becomes a mathematical certainty rather than a political possibility.

In this volatile environment, the most significant sound is the silence of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga.”

You are 100% correct Zimbabwe politics has become a dysfunctional “high stakes high theatre heavy with gunpowder, house built by the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964 to 1979.” Robert Mugabe and his fellow Zanu PF leaders have fostered on those who fought in the liberation war the iron-clad belief that they and they alone have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe. 

The war veterans have been thoroughly brainwashed by Mugabe & co. into  paid lip-service to “One man, one vote!” and all the other liberation war rhetoric of freedom and liberty. The war veterans were made to believe that whilst the rest of Zimbabweans had the vote, they and they alone had the veto on who ruled Zimbabwe. 

It is this thorough brainwashing of the war veterans that helped Mugabe stay in power for 37 years and Zanu PF, as the party that spear headed the liberation war to stay in power for 46 years and counting.

The origins of this belief that Zanu PF has the divine right to rule Zimbabwe was the nation’s failure to ask the key question: WHAT KIND OF LEADERS WILL AN ARMED STRUGGLE THROW UP? We should have asked the question long before the decision was made to wage the armed struggle and at every turn though out. We did not and have paid dearly for it. 

Like it or not Zimbabwe has provided the whole world with the worst case scenario answer to the above rhetorical question. 

The war veterans have stepped in Zimbabwe’s chaotic and dysfunctional political system again and again these last 46 years but only to exercise their veto and muddy the waters. The war veterans played a key role in the 2008 Operation Mavhotera Papi whose primary purpose was to punish the people for rejecting Zanu PF in the March elections and thus reimpose the failed de facto one party dictatorship. 

The war veterans were once again used to bolster the 2017 military coup. They once again played their veto card to help force Mugabe out of office but only to replace him with another dictator. There threatening to exercise their veto once again but, once again, to replace one Zanu PF dictator for another. History is just repeating itself. We are blundering from pillar to post. 

The solution is to reject this nonsense that Zanu PF thugs have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe. That war veterans have a veto whilst the rest have a vote. We, the people of Zimbabwe, must finally acknowledge that our armed struggle did throw up leaders who believed they are “more equal than others”. We  need to implement the democratic reforms and dismantle the de facto one party Zanu PF dictatorship. 

Those who continue to believe war veterans have the veto or encourage it in any way are a curse to the nation, to say the least. We need to cure ourselves of this foolishness or we will never ever get our of this hell-on-earth Zanu PF landed us in.

If next elections were free and fair (big IF), whoever offered to scarp amendment No. 3 would win! W Mukori

 IF NEXT ELECTIONS WERE FREE AND FAIR ZANU PF WOULD LOSE TO ANYONE SCRAPPING AMENDMENT No. 3!

Zanu PF is boxing the nation into a tight corner, the party is well known for doing this, and we should be smart enough to avoid this mouse trap! 

After 46 years of Zanu PF rigging elections and getting away with it because the party has been giving away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate no matter how flawed and illegal the process get. Unfortunately for the nation, opposition leaders like Chamisa has a pool of brain dead followers whom he was able to con again and again to participate in the flawed elections with idiotic lies. 

SMART POSITION

• - Demand the implementation of democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. Rules are there for a purpose and it really is foolish to keep participating in flawed elections, “so flawed, so illegal, the only logical step is to withdraw”. 

• - MDC/CCC leaders have failed to get any reforms implemented in 26 years including the 5 GNI years because they are corrupt and incompetent. This does not mean we do not need the reforms; we need the reforms now as ever. Just because Tsvangirai & co. sold out does mean there is no one else who can implement the reforms; there are plenty of competent Zimbabweans; just need to create the right environment for them to emerge.

ZANU PF POSITION

• - Zanu PF created this dysfunction de facto one party state to consolidate its iron grip on power. Whilst party member may fight amongst themselves the are one when it comes to “Zanu PF will rule forever! Kusvika madonki amera nyanga!” The party thugs will never implement reforms to ensure free and fair elections, they will never reform themselves out of office. 

• - They will avoid any situation that might result in the party being forced to accept implementing reforms, as happened in the 2008 to 2013 GNU. This is why the party has wooed the opposition to participate with the few gravy train seats, POLAD, etc. and the mouse trap.

ZANU PF AMENDMENT MOUSE TRAP

• - Draw people’s attention away from rigged elections and demand for reforms by giving them something else to fight for instead - fight to stop Mnangagwa staying in power beyond 2028.

• - Spice up ED2030 Agenda by making sure it remains of the national agenda at all times.ED2030 has since morphed into Constitutional amendment No.3.

• - Spice up amendment No. 3 by addition even more provocative amendments such as extending the term limit of not just Mnangagwa but MPs, Senators and councillors, proposed MPs and senators will elect the president, etc. 

• - Spice up amendment No. 3 even more by proposing parliament alone will decide. There will be no referendum. Zanu PF has just blatantly rig 2023 elections and will have no problem rigging the referendum but the regime also knows that if the opposition should demand some reforms to clean up the process especially in the light of the rigged 2023 elections, the party will be in trouble. So the party is playing hard ball on the referendum to get the opposition and public to commit to the referendum completely.

• - Meanwhile Zanu PF is mobilising its party vote rigging machinery to prepare to rig the referendum whilst doing everything to disrupt the opposition.

• - Spring the trap, force the opposition to participate in the referendum and then elections knowing the process is “so flawed, so illegal, the only logical step is to withdraw” but cannot because it is too late!