"ZANU PF Considering Electoral Reforms To Remove Direct Election Of The President"
ZANU PF is reportedly contemplating Constitutional Amendments that would, among other changes, eliminate the direct election of the President and instead adopt a system where Parliament elects the President, similar to South Africa’s approach.
In South Africa, during a general election, voters choose a political party rather than an individual candidate.
All votes from across the nation are tallied up, and each party’s share of the vote determines the number of seats they get in the National Assembly.
Parties then fill these seats with members based on their list of candidates submitted before the election.
The President is chosen from among the members of the National Assembly based on the party’s share of seats. Once elected, the President is no longer a member of the National Assembly.
Investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono reported that a senior government official informed him that the ZANU PF-led government is contemplating replacing the first-past-the-post system with a proportional representation approach for electing the President. Said Chin’ono:
The proposed constitutional changes to the electoral law, under the pretext of including opposition suggestions from the last parliament, are a precursor for the massive changes that ZANU-PF wants to implement.
A very senior government official has told me that the ZANU PF government is considering a constitutional amendment to remove the direct election of a president, opting instead for the South African system where parliament will elect the president.
This means the party with the most number of MPs gets to take the presidency.
Chin’ono said ZANU PF intends to introduce constitutional changes because it has recognized that its presidential candidates faced challenges against the opposition in the past six elections. These changes aim to thwart the “Bhora Musango” strategy. He wrote on X:
This move is clearly driven by the realisation that ZANU PF presidential candidates have struggled in the last six elections, while their MPs have performed much better than them.
Who will defend the current constitutional arrangements, and how will they do it?
The opposition parliamentary candidates have struggled in the last three elections, while the opposition presidential candidate has been more popular than the parliamentary candidates.
A similar change has happened in Togo, where the dictator changed the constitution from a direct presidential election to one where the members of parliament elect the president.
The senior government official said this change will remove the Bhora Musango phenomenon, where ZANU PF parliamentary candidates focus on their reelection and let the president work for his own victory.
This comes as Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi recently told State media that the government is considering constitutional changes that would include the transfer of voter registration responsibilities from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to the Civil Registry Department.
Ziyambi said the proposed amendments stem from recommendations made by Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) legislators in the Ninth Parliament ahead of the 2023 general elections.
More: Pindula News
