LONDON, United Kingdom – Zimbabweans living in the United Kingdom will gather outside Zimbabwe House on The Strand in central London on Saturday – Independence Day – to protest the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 3) Bill, demanding that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government submit any constitutional changes to a national referendum.
The demonstration, organised by the Citizens Protest Movement, a coalition of UK-based Zimbabwean community organisations, will begin at 12PM outside the embassy, which serves as Zimbabwe’s diplomatic mission in Britain.
Protesters are opposing provisions in the Bill that would strip citizens of the right to directly elect the president, transferring that power to parliament; extend presidential and parliamentary terms from five to seven years, effectively pushing the next elections from 2028 to 2030; return voter registration from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to the Registrar-General’s Office, reversing a key reform of the 2013 constitution; and expand presidential control over judicial appointments and the Senate.
For Zimbabweans living in the diaspora, the removal of direct presidential elections carries a particular sting – it would render the long-promised but still-unimplemented diaspora vote effectively meaningless.
Makomborero Haruzivishe, diaspora spokesperson for the Constitutional Defenders Forum, one of the coalition members, said parliament could not be trusted with the power to elect a president.
“The plot to strip Zimbabweans of the right to vote for their president directly, and to hand that power to legislators who, as we’ve seen in this current parliament, are susceptible to bribery and manipulation, is an attack on the democratic will of every Zimbabwean,” he said.
“We will not stand by while the fundamental rights of our people are traded away behind closed doors.”
Chenai Mutambaruse, spokesperson for Zim for All Foundation, said the Bill was compounding the failures of the last election rather than addressing them.
“Instead of addressing the challenges exposed in the last election, this bill is entrenching them, further weakening accountability, limiting citizen participation, and concentrating power in the hands of the president,” she said.
Organisers said the choice of Independence Day, marking 46 years since Zimbabwe’s gained freedom in 1980, was deliberate, calling it a statement that the freedoms enshrined in the 2013 constitution must not be surrendered to executive overreach.
Critics have also raised the legitimacy of parliament being asked to pass the amendments, pointing to the mass removal of Citizens Coalition for Change MPs by self-styled CCC secretary-general Sengezo Tshabangu, backed by state institutions, which they argue means the legislature no longer genuinely reflects the electorate’s will.
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