EXILED former Higher Education deputy minister, Godfrey Gandawa has denounced Constitutional Amendment Number 3 Bill, noting that it promotes dictatorship which the 2013 Constitution sought to remedy.
In a lengthy written submission to Parliament of Zimbabwe sent through courier services from his hideout believed to be Namibia, Gandawa said when the country gained independence in 1980 it inherited the Lancaster House Constitution— a transitional document negotiated under conditions of political constraints. The said Constitution was then repeatedly amended inorder to entrench executive power rather than strengthen institutional checks.
“The introduction of an executive presidency in the mid-1980s marked a decisive shift towards centralised authority, a shift that would define the next three decades of governance,” Gandawa said while giving a post-independence context.
“These amendments cumulatively entrenched what scholars have termed the ‘Big Man Syndrome’: a governance model in which the State becomes synonymous with the individual who leads it, and where political institutions are subordinated to personal authority.
“This model proved resistant to reform and produced cycles of instability, contested legitimacy, and political violence,” he added.
Gandawa, who also served as Magunje legislator from 2013 until 2017 when he was removed during the infamous ‘Operation Restore Legacy’ that deposed late former president Robert Mugabe, said the 2013 Constitution was a panacea to dictatorship.
“The 2013 Constitution was designed as a corrective to this history. It represented a national consensus to dismantle the architecture of personalised rule and to replace it with a constitutional order grounded in transparency, accountability, and the dispersal of executive power
“It introduced term limits, strengthened judicial independence, and reaffirmed the principle that the Head of State must derive authority from the people.
“Amendment Number 3 must therefore be evaluated against this historical backdrop. It is not a neutral proposal. It reopens a constitutional wound that the nation worked painstakingly to close,” opined Gandawa.
He added that CAB3 seeks to tamper with sacrosanct provisions of the 2013 Constitution hence it must go to a referendum for the masses to decide.
“The Constitution of Zimbabwe is clear: amendments that alter presidential tenure or the duration of executive authority must return to the people for approval,” Gandawa said.
“This requirement is not a procedural formality; it is a substantive safeguard designed to protect the Republic from the concentration of power and to ensure that the people remain the ultimate authors of their political destiny.”
He said if Mnangagwa and his henchmen ignore calls for a referendum and pass the bill anyway, the move would be tantamount to usurping citizens’ sovereign authority.
“A referendum is therefore not optional. It is the constitutional mechanism through which the people exercise their sovereign authority on matters of this magnitude.
“To proceed without one would be to diminish the role of the people, to unsettle the constitutional order, and to reverse the democratic gains achieved through decades of struggle and sacrifice,” said the exiled academic-turned-politician in rejecting CAB3.
