HRF is alarmed by the Zimbabwean cabinet’s approval this week of draft constitutional amendments that would effectively extend dictator Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term and end direct presidential elections. This is a coup in motion against the Zimbabwean people’s right to choose their leaders. The amendment process is led by a regime that rules with a mandate gained by force and that lacks genuine popular legitimacy.

A constitutional amendment would extend presidential and parliamentary terms from five to seven years. This would enable Mnangagwa, who is serving a second term and is required by the current constitution to step down in 2028, and the ruling ZANU-PF, which holds a two-thirds majority in parliament, to remain in power until at least 2030. Another amendment would end universal suffrage for choosing the president, transferring that power to lawmakers.

Both Mnangagwa — who seized power in a 2017 coup — and the ZANU-PF-dominated legislature are serving mandates which are the outcomes of contested elections in 2023 that were neither free nor fair, marked by manipulation and violent intimidation of the opposition.