There is a well-worn script for leaders who stay on beyond their time. The leader never asks for more power. The people demand it. The party insists. And the leader, ever the reluctant servant, bows to the collective will.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has now read from that script. Speaking to State media editors after signing Constitutional Amendment Act No. 3 into law, Mnangagwa said MPs “did the right thing” by passing the controversial amendment, and that he had no choice but to accept a “collective decision”. Among the sweeping changes under the new law, Mnangagwa can now stay in power until at least 2030, extending a second term that was to end in 2028.
“I don’t believe in individual persuasion or individual systems where the needs of or the wishes of an individual take the day,” he said, according to a new interview published by the Sunday Mail. “I felt they (MPs) had done the correct thing. I expected them to pass it, and they did. So, I was happy.”
The term extension, he insisted, was not his idea alone. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t an idea of an individual. You cannot attribute this to a particular individual or group of persons, but a collective evolution of the political process.”
What he said before
Mnangagwa has previously said he would not extend his stay in power. In September 2024, on an investment visit to China, he told a group of Zimbabweans: “I’m in my second term, and I already know the date I will leave, 2028. I will go home, and others will take over.”
As the campaign to keep him in office grew louder inside ZANU-PF, he said, “persuade the persuaders” to drop the idea. Throughout, he described himself as a “constitutionalist”, a label that was never quite defined. It could mean a man who respects term limits, or a man who respects whatever the constitution says after it has been amended. The persuaders, it turns out, were not persuaded. The amendment passed. And the constitutionalist found himself constitutionally able to stay.
Mnangagwa was keen to stress that the decision was freely made. Asked why the media had not been invited to witness him signing the Bill, he said: “If you look at me, I am not a guy who can be intimidated. What I do, I do freely.”
‘I can sleep comfortably’
The President used the same interview to defend his economic record, rejecting suggestions that the current “stability” is temporary. “You can go in any part of this country, there is no part of the country, village, district or province which has no programmes. They have programmes, they have targets, which they set by themselves. What else would you want as a leader? I feel very proud. I can sleep comfortably with the type of country I lead.”
On xenophobic sentiment in South Africa, which has displaced thousands of Zimbabweans, Mnangagwa said Zimbabweans returning home would be reintegrated. He does not blame Pretoria. “To be honest, I don’t think I am aware of any Government on the continent which supports that. These are small groups who do such things. But generally, we are Pan-Africanists, we accept ourselves as Pan-Africanists wherever we are.”
