…as Zanu PF reshuffles Politburo
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has made surprise changes in the Zanu PF politburo — the party’s supreme decision-making body — amid reports that he wants to move to amend the constitution to facilitate his secret plan to hang onto power beyond the 2028 constitutional limit.
OWEN GAGARE
To execute that mission, the Zanu PF leader brought back trusted political ally Patrick Chinamasa to legal affairs.
Chinamasa, as Justice minister, and Mnangagwa, Rural Housing minister, were tasked by the late former president Robert Mugabe in 2005 and 2006 to change the constitution to harmonise the general elections by moving the presidential and parliamentary polls to 2010.
This meant that Mugabe would have got two more years in office without an election.
Alternatively, this meant MPs would have had their tenures cut by two years if elections were brought forward to 2008 as it later became the case.
Mugabe was eventually forced into the 2008 elections which he feared amid internal strife within Zanu PF and economic meltdown characterised by hyperinflation.
He lost the first round of polling to the late MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, but remained in office after a bloody run-off.
Zanu PF was also defeated by the MDC in parliamentary polls.
This led to a government of national unit from 2009-2013.
Now Mnangagwa wants to de-harmonise the elections to secure himself two more years in power between from 2028 and 2030.
He wants parliamentary polls held in 2028, with the next presidential election coming in 2030.
Although Mnangagwa has now dropped his third term bid under military pressure and says he has no intention of seeking that, his close political allies say he wants to stay on until 2030 when his second term expires in 2028.
Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga and his military-backed faction have forced Mnangagwa to drop his third term plan and reconfigure their power retention calculations.
Chiwenga is anxious to take over from Mnangagwa after he was duped during the coup that he could come in after 2023 as the President was going to run for a term.
Instead of risking a complicated third term bid, Mnangagwa is said to now prefer a two-year extension from 2028, hence the current divisive Zanu PF mantra “2030 vaMnangagwa vanenge vachipo”.
In the process of making some changes, Mnangagwa demoted Mike Bimha as party secretary for commissariat.
Bimha was appointed secretary for commissariat after Victor Matematanda was deployed to Mozambique as ambassador.
Matematanda had replaced retired Lieutenant-General Engelbert Rugeje in that post.
There were tensions between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga over those appointments.
To replace Bimha, Mnangagwa appointed party ideologue retired Brigadier-General Munyaradzi Machacha.
Machacha was Hebert Chitepo School of Ideology principal and party director of publications.
Nicknamed George Kashiri during the liberation struggle, Machacha, a political ally of Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, was the liaison officer at Foxtrot Assembly Point in Buhera, Manicaland, in 1980 soon after the liberation struggle.
He was a board member of Chinese and army diamond company Anjin Investments.
Machacha was involved in the 2013 constitution-making process.
He will be responsible for party mobilisation of key grassroots support for the party ravaged by factionalism and a shrinking social base.
Machacha will be crucial in Chiwenga’s succession bid.
The Zanu PF leader also further rewarded another veteran ally Jacob Mudenda, who is also Speaker of the National Assembly, by making him Treasurer-General of the party.
Mudenda played a key role in the 2017 military coup which ousted Mugabe, but had not been significantly rewarded for his effort.
These changes come after Mnangagwa made a failed bid to appoint Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander General Phillip Valerio Sibanda into the politburo last December.
Mnangagwa wanted Sibanda to checkmate Chiwenga in the current power matrix and get a third term or two more years in charge.
Background
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s dramatic climbdown and reversal of Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander General Phillip Valerio Sibanda’s unconstitutional appointment into the ruling Zanu PF decision-making administrative organ, the politburo, as an ex officio member has brought to the fore a series of constitutional violations which characterise his presidency.
Mnangagwa appointed Sibanda into the politburo last month at the end of the Zanu PF annual conference in Gweru, but was pressured to reverse it after initial resistance.
“To fill the vacancy, I am appointing Cde Rose Mpofu of Matabeleland South province as a Politburo member and the new Secretary for People with Disabilities.
Additionally, ‘Cde Gwenzi’, General Philip Valerio Sibanda, as an ex-officio member of the Politburo,” Mnangagwa said.
The move was widely and swiftly criticised as unconstitutional and unlawful.
Section 208 of the constitution provides for conduct of members of security services, specifically prohibiting acting in a partisan manner and furthering interests of any political party or cause.
Conduct of members of security services
(1) Members of the security services must act in accordance with this constitution and the law;
(2) Neither the security services nor any of their members may, in the exercise of their functions —
(a) act in a partisan manner;
(b) further the interests of any political party or cause;
(c) prejudice the lawful interests of any political party or cause; or
(d) violate the fundamental rights or freedoms of any person.
(3) Members of the security services must not be active members or office-bearers of any political party or organisation; and
(4) Serving members of the security services must not be employed or engaged in civilian institutions except in periods of public emergency.
However, Mnangagwa insisted on it as brazenly illegal as it was amid a storm of protest.
“People are mistaken; they think that General Sibanda is a civil servant. He is not a civil servant; first point. Second point, he is an ex-officio member of the politburo which means that he is not a substantive member of the politburo, he cannot vote in the politburo. He is ex-officio. So, there is no problem, there is no contradiction. He is just a civil servant and I as the President can appoint anybody as an ex-officio member which means by virtue of a certain particular position you can be allowed to sit in our substantive body of the politburo. That’s how it is. I don’t know who gets offended by him sitting in the politburo. He cannot vote, but he can contribute.”
But the public pressure was unrelenting.
On Friday, Harare human rights lawyer Kudzi Kadzere wrote to Mnangagwa through Mbidzo, Muchadehama & Makoni Legal Practitioners, demanding reversal of Sibanda’s appointment within 10 days.
The lawyer wrote: “Your Excellency, the term ‘ex-officio’ is Latin meaning literally ‘from the office or by right of office.’ According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ex officio means ‘as a result of one’s status or position’ or denoting or relating to a member of a body who holds the role as a result of their status or another position they hold.
“In a board setup an ex officio member of the board has all the same rights, privileges, duties, an obligations as any other board member, although in the some cases the ex officio member cannot vote.
“It is therefore evident that your appointment of General Sibanda as an ex-officio member of the Zanu PF politburo puts a serving Commander of the Defence Forces in an invidious position of acting or being seen as acting in a partisan manner, furthering the interests of the Zanu PF political party prejudicing the interest of opposition political parties and being seen or perceived as an active member or office bearer of the Zanu PF political party especially given that he was appointed into the highest decision making body of Zanu PF,” Kadzere’s lawyers said.
