We are being presented with a narrative—a polished and insidious one—that Zimbabwe’s chronic affliction is democracy itself. The “Breaking Barriers Initiative” (BBI) has been unveiled, framed in the messianic language of national salvation. It diagnoses our nation’s ills as “toxic elections,” “societal polarization,” and “perpetual electioneering,” all of which, we are told, stand as the final barriers between us and the prosperity of “Vision 2030.”
This diagnosis is a profound and deliberate deception.
As a constitutional lawyer, I must state this in the clearest possible terms: The Breaking Barriers Initiative, based on its own internal planning documents, is not a reform. It is a meticulously choreographed legal farce, designed with a single goal: to subvert the explicit prohibition against incumbent term-limit extensions in Section 328(7) of the Constitution, all while deliberately circumventing the right of the Zimbabwean people to veto such a change in a national referendum.
It is not constitutional engineering. It is an attempted constitutional coup.
The Anatomy of a Deception
The BBI’s architects are politically astute. They understand that a naked power grab would be unpalatable. Therefore, they have constructed an elaborate piece of political theatre to manufacture legitimacy for what is a top-down executive project.
First, they employ crisis politics. By framing regular elections—the very bedrock of a democratic state—as an existential threat, they justify an extraordinary “solution”: a 10-year “election sabbatical.” This is a classic authoritarian tactic: amplifying a genuine governance challenge (the failure to hold credible elections) into a justification for suspending democracy itself.
Second, they are engaging in political astroturfing to create a veneer of consensus. The plan is not to be “executive-driven” but a “parliamentary-led process.” It proposes a Joint Select Committee, modeled on COPAC, to signal broad-based support. The most cynical part of this strategy is the designation of an opposition figure, Senator Sengezo Tshabangu, to move the BBI motion in Parliament, to be seconded by the ZANU-PF Chief Whip.
Let us be clear. This is not bipartisan unity; it is the strategic co-opting of a faction of the opposition to “disabuse naysayers… of the… notion that the Initiative is… a partisan, Zanu PF agenda.” The internal documents are brazenly candid about this. Furthermore, the plan to hold a drafting workshop for the amendment bill before the public consultations even begin exposes the entire public participation process as a sham. It is ratification, not formulation. It is an insult to Section 141 of the Constitution, which demands genuine public involvement.
A Forensic Takedown of the Legal Farce
The BBI’s entire edifice rests on a series of fraudulent legal interpretations designed to create loopholes where none exist. It is a three-step assault on the core of the Constitution.
1. The “Time-Limit vs. Term-Limit” Fallacy
The BBI avoids directly amending the President’s term limit (Section 91), as this would clearly trigger a referendum. Instead, it proposes to amend Section 143 and Section 158 to extend the life of Parliament for a decade.
The legal argument is that Section 143 (Parliament’s term) is merely a “Time-Limit Provision,” not a “Term-Limit Provision” (which they claim only applies to a person). This distinction is a transparent semantic game. The Constitution is an integrated document. Section 95(2) explicitly states that the President’s term of office is “coterminous with the life of Parliament.”
It is a legal and logical impossibility to extend one without extending the other. The effect is identical. This fraudulent distinction is the central artifice designed to cheat the safeguards of Section 328.
2. Severing the Mandate: The Repeal of Section 92
The second intervention is the repeal of Section 92, which mandates the direct, popular election of the President. This would be replaced by a system of parliamentary selection. This is not a procedural tweak; it is a fundamental restructuring of the Zimbabwean state.
Section 88(1) is unequivocal: “Executive authority derives from the people of Zimbabwe.” The direct election is the primary mechanism for this. Repealing it severs the link between the people and their chief executive, violating the core principle of popular sovereignty enshrined in Section 3 of the Constitution. This change alone is of such magnitude that it should require a referendum.
3. The Linchpin: The “Deeming Provision”
Here is the most audacious part of the entire scheme. The BBI does not even propose to hold an indirect parliamentary election in 2025.
Instead, it will insert a transitional “deeming provision” that simply declares the incumbent President “shall be deemed to have been elected by Parliament for a term of five years.” This “legal fiction,” as the BBI’s own documents call it, would grant the President a new term from 2025 to 2030, based on a non-existent election.
To justify this, the architects twist Section 91(2), which states “…three or more years’ service is deemed to be a full term.” They argue that by December 2025, the President will have only served two years and three months of his current term, which therefore doesn’t count. This, they claim, makes the “deemed” term a “fresh, second, and final term.”
This is a grotesque contortion of the law. The “three years” clause was designed for succession cases (e.g., a Vice President taking over) to prevent them from serving most of a term and two more. It was never intended to allow a sitting President to retroactively nullify his own mandate to reset his term-limit clock.
The Assault on the Constitution’s Guardian: Section 328
This entire complex, cowardly strategy is designed to defeat one clause: Section 328(7).
This section is the Constitution’s ultimate shield against incumbent self-enrichment. It explicitly states that an amendment to a “term-limit provision” that extends the time a person may hold office “does not apply in relation to any person who held or occupied that office… at any time before the amendment.”
This clause was written precisely to stop exactly what the BBI is trying to do.
By claiming they are not technically amending a “term-limit provision” (but a “time-limit” one) and by using a “deeming provision” to create a “new” term, the BBI’s architects are elevating flimsy form over undeniable substance. A purposive court would see this for what it is: a package of amendments whose sole, undeniable effect is to extend the incumbent’s time in office, thereby placing it in direct violation of Section 328(7).
Furthermore, the BBI’s substance is an attack on the “basic structure” of the Constitution. The abolition of elections (violating Section 67) and the removal of popular sovereignty (violating Section 3) are so repugnant to the democratic identity of the republic (Section 1) that they should be considered unconstitutional, even if the tainted parliamentary procedure is followed.
The Economic Consequence: Capital is Cowardly
Finally, let us address the BBI’s economic justification—that this “sabbatical” from democracy is the prerequisite for “Vision 2030.”
This is a profound economic miscalculation. Capital is not attracted to tyranny, even if it’s “stable.” Capital is attracted to predictability, stability, and the rule of law.
What signal does the BBI send to any rational domestic or international investor? It signals that the nation’s supreme law is not supreme at all. It signals that the Constitution is merely a pliable instrument for the executive of the day, to be bent, twisted, and “hacked” at will.
This initiative does not create investor confidence; it creates massive sovereign risk. It does not eliminate “toxicity”; it guarantees it by closing off all peaceful, democratic avenues for political change, breeding profound public cynicism and increasing the potential for future instability.
The BBI is not a prescription for economic growth; it is a recipe for capital flight. The rule of law is not a barrier to prosperity; it is the only foundation upon which it can be built.
Conclusion
The Breaking Barriers Initiative is not an attempt to interpret the Constitution; it is an attempt to defeat it. It is an affront to the millions of Zimbabweans who voted for the 2013 Constitution in a referendum.
It treats the Constitution not as a sacred charter of governance but as a legal puzzle to be solved. This project must be opposed, not just by political parties, but by every citizen, every business leader, every lawyer, and every member of civil society who believes in the rule of law.
The Constitution was intended to be a shield to protect the people from the state. The BBI seeks to re-forge it into a sword for the state to use against the people’s most fundamental right: the right to choose who governs them. We must not allow this to happen.