President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s political rivals and critics argue that he has no intention of stepping down from power at the end of his presidential term in 2028, suggesting that he will continue exploring ways to extend his rule, reported NewsDay.
Mnangagwa recently publicly committed to respecting the constitutional term limits, but his opponents remain sceptical and believe he may attempt to find ways to prolong his hold on power.
However, speaking during an X Space debate titled: “Mnangagwa Succession: Is the ED2030 Campaign Dead in the Water?” organised by NewsDay on Thursday evening, several commentators said Mnangagwa was not being honest.
MDC-T leader Douglas Mwonzora said President Mnangagwa did not commit to step down as the President of the country, but rather only as the leader of his political party. Said Mwonzora:
The opinion is that President Mnangagwa said ‘I am not going to run for a third term as Zimbabwean President’. That is not what President Mnangagwa said.
He said he would not stand again as a ZANU PF president. He did not talk of the national presidency and this is where people are being taken for a ride.
If the President believed that he was ruling out running for national presidency, he would have said that.
You don’t need to be a president of a political party to be elected president of a country.
Former Foreign Affairs minister Walter Mzembi, who was forced into exile at the height of the November 2017 military coup that deposed the late former President Robert Mugabe, said:
Mnangagwa has cleverly punctured the ball, so we are playing a deflated ball all of us because he has taken the steam out of the debate by announcing that he will abide by the Constitution and depart the stage by 2028.
However, the politics is speaking to a different ball game. Two fundamental questions arise whenever an extension is sought, whether legal or illegal and in this case, unconstitutional.
You either have been playing the game very well to the enjoyment and satisfaction of your audience which then demands an encore that they want more of you or secondly, you are, as in the game of football, in a deadlock and then extra time determines the result.
Political analyst Effie Ncube urged Mnangagwa to respect the Constitution and hand over power peacefully when his term ends. Said Ncube:
First, for ZANU PF, it has never passed on power from one leader to another peacefully, through a congress, while the other leader is still in office. That has never happened since 1980. They must do so.
As a country also, we have never done that. We must do so. This is the legacy that will live longer.
We must learn a new way of doing things, passing power from one to the other peacefully as outlined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, ZANU PF information director Farai Marapira dismissed suggestions that President Mnangagwa intends to cling to power, despite the president’s own assertions to the contrary. He said:
My President has spoken not just last week as Mr Mzembi is, unfortunately, saying that he made a U-turn last week.
He is not interested in a third term. What then happens is that our internal democracy, maybe Mr Mzembi has not seen that ZANU PF has taken a big turn to democracy, people are allowed to speak their minds and we do not punish or chase out people for speaking out their minds even if the President has been saying something different.
We are a party in which the President listens and allows people to speak their minds. This must be a new phenomenon to him [Mzembi] because when he had his time, there was no tolerance for people to speak their minds.
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