HARARE — The ruling Zanu PF Youth League has publicly broken with one of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s most prominent business allies, issuing a stinging rebuke of Wicknell Chivayo’s reported plan to donate US$3.6 million to parliament – a rare display of internal dissent as the party pushes a deeply contested constitutional amendment through the legislature.
In a statement signed by deputy secretary for youth affairs John Paradza, the Youth League urged parliament to refuse the donation outright, warning that the proposed gift was “misguided” and risked bringing the institution into disrepute.
“Parliament as the legislature stands as one of the most critical arms of the state and will never survive on handouts,” the statement read. “It cannot be seen as being bought or swayed through donations be it in cash or kind, that appear transactional.”
The rebuke is laden with political significance. Chivayo has cultivated an ostentatious public profile as a benefactor of Zanu PF causes and a confidant of senior party figures, and his ties to Kudakwashe Tagwirei – rumoured to be angling for the presidency as Mnangagwa’s eventual successor – give the donation controversy an additional edge.
The Youth League’s decision to publicly challenge his conduct, however carefully framed around institutional integrity, signals growing unease within the party’s structures at a moment when Zanu PF is already under intense pressure over Constitutional Amendment (No. 3) Bill.
Critics of the amendments, which would among other things strip voters of the direct presidential election and empower MPs to choose the president – opening what opposition parties and lawyers warn would be a path to the presidency for the highest bidder – have accused the government of using parliament as a rubber stamp.
The Youth League’s warning that parliament “cannot be forced or bought” will be read by many as an uncomfortable echo of that broader critique, even as the statement stops well short of addressing the amendment directly.
The league sought to soften its position by praising Mnangagwa’s leadership at length, listing infrastructure and economic achievements and insisting the government “remains fully in control of the country’s developmental agenda.”
But the structure of the statement – lavish loyalty pledges bookending a pointed institutional rebuke – betrays the delicate tightrope the youth wing is walking.
“We call upon members of parliament to also take a stand against any attempt to bring the Parliament of Zimbabwe into disrepute,” the statement said. “We have an obligation to our constituencies, and the nation at large, to safeguard Zimbabwe’s democracy.”
The Youth League’s intervention adds to a widening circle of voices – civil society groups, the Law Society of Zimbabwe, Catholic bishops, war veterans and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission – raising concerns about the independence of parliament at precisely the moment it is being asked to pass the most consequential constitutional changes since the 2013 charter was adopted.
Chivayo has not publicly responded to the Youth League’s statement.
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