Tendai Ruben Mbofana
The argument that a nation’s constitution must be dilated to accommodate the slow pace of its development is not a mark of “constitutional maturity,” but rather a confession of executive exhaustion.
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In the wake of the Constitutional Amendment (No. 3) Bill (CAB3) in Zimbabwe, a narrative has been meticulously crafted to suggest that the five-year electoral cycle is an inherent “disruption” to long-term goals like Vision 2030.
This reasoning, championed by government-aligned voices and legalists, posits that for development to flourish, the democratic clock must be slowed.
However, this logic is fundamentally flawed and dangerously inverted.
If a five-year mandate is found to be disruptive to national goals, the failure lies not within the text of the Constitution, but within the caliber, efficiency, and sincerity of the leadership entrusted to meet those goals.
To change the supreme law to fit the lethargy of the state is to treat the thermometer as the cause of the fever.
Constitutional democracy is built on the premise that power is a temporary lease, not a permanent deed.
The five-year term is not an arbitrary number plucked from the air; it is a calculated period designed to balance the need for policy continuity with the necessity of accountability.
When a government argues that five years is too short a period to show progress, it is essentially admitting to a lack of urgency or an inability to plan effectively.
In the modern world, five years is an eternity in terms of economic cycles and technological advancement.
Global corporations undergo complete transformations in half that time.
Emerging economies, such as in Southeast Asia and parts of Africa like Botswana and Mauritius, have demonstrated that significant, tangible development can be registered within a single five-year window if the leadership is focused, transparent, and disciplined.
These nations prove that a five-year mandate is sufficient for a capable administration to implement, monitor, and deliver on major national projects.
This explains why only a paltry thirteen countries throughout the world have seven-year terms.
Therefore, the claim that elections “derail” development is a convenient scapegoat for administrative inertia.
The prevailing official narrative supporting CAB3 leans heavily on the idea that “perpetual electoral contestation” is a drain on resources and a distraction from national development strategies like Vision 2030.
This is a profound misrepresentation of the relationship between democracy and development.
Stability is not the absence of elections; it is the presence of predictable, high-quality governance that survives them.
When leadership is effective, an election is not a disruption but a renewal of a mandate—a moment where the citizenry validates the developmental path.
If a government feels that an election is a threat to its projects, it suggests a lack of confidence in the projects themselves or their benefits to the public.
Development that fears the ballot box is likely development that has failed to deliver its promised dividends to the voters.
By decoupling the presidency from frequent accountability, CAB3 effectively reduces the pressure on leaders to perform.
Accountability is the greatest engine of development.
When a leader knows they must return to the people in sixty months, there is a natural incentive to prioritize efficiency, curb corruption, and accelerate service delivery.
By extending this to eighty-four months, the amendment grants the state a “procrastination premium,” allowing for two more years of potential mismanagement before the day of reckoning arrives.
The government’s argument also leans on the “cost” of elections, suggesting that the resources saved by skipping a cycle every decade could be better spent on infrastructure.
This is a false economy.
The cost of one or two extra years of unaccountable governance, corruption, and policy stagnation far outweighs the administrative cost of a general election.
Zimbabwe is already losing over US4 billion annually to corruption and the looting of national resources—particularly at the hands of those in power—which translates to a staggering US28 billion over seven years.
Surely, this cannot be compared to the cost of a single election, especially when the August 2023 general elections reportedly cost approximately US$15 million.
History is littered with nations that traded their democratic cycles for the promise of “stable development,” only to find that without the pressure of regular elections, the leadership became more insulated, more corrupt, and ultimately less effective at achieving those very developmental goals.
The concept of “sovereignty” should be defined by the right of the people to choose their path frequently, not the right of a political class to insulate itself from the people’s judgment.
At the heart of the government’s defense of CAB3 is the philosophy that “democracy is not measured by the frequency of elections but by their integrity and capacity to produce stable governance.”
This is a seductive but deceptive binary.
Integrity and frequency are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they are reinforcing.
A high-integrity democracy uses frequent elections to ensure that “stable governance” does not transform into “static governance.”
If the current five-year cycle is truly disruptive, it is because the political culture has made it so—not the Constitution.
If elections in Zimbabwe are seen as high-stakes, disruptive events that freeze the economy, it is because of a political environment where the winner takes all and the state machinery is often conflated with a single party.
The fix, therefore, is to reform the political culture and ensure the neutrality of state institutions, ensuring that development continues regardless of who is in power.
Changing the Constitution to accommodate leadership failure sets a catastrophic precedent.
It suggests that whenever a national goal is not met, the rules of the game can be altered rather than the players being held to account.
Vision 2030 was established under the current five-year constitutional framework; therefore, using these development goals as a pretext to alter that framework is a subversion of the rule of law.
A national vision must serve the Constitution, but this amendment seeks to force the Constitution to serve a political vision.
In either case, the solution is better leadership, more rigorous project management, and a relentless crackdown on the leakages that truly derail development—corruption and looting of resources—rather than the “distraction” of a ballot paper.
True constitutional maturity is the ability of a nation to stick to its foundational rules even when they are inconvenient.
It is the realization that the Constitution is a shield for the citizens, not a tool for the convenience of the executive.
By framing CAB3 as a “viable escape route from the past,” the government is actually attempting to escape the very accountability that defines a modern, progressive state.
If Zimbabwe is to reach the heights of Vision 2030, it requires leaders who can sprint within five-year intervals, not leaders who ask for the track to be shortened or the clock to be slowed.
The problem is not that the cycle is too short; it is that the commitment to service is often too shallow.
The Constitution is fine.
It is time to fix the leadership.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08