Tendai Ruben Mbofana
The attempt by Nick Mangwana to redefine democracy as a mere collection of nested electoral colleges is a sophisticated exercise in constitutional gaslighting.
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When the Permanent Secretary for Information uses his social media platform to argue that democracy has never been about direct popular choice, he is not merely offering a different interpretation of governance.
He is attempting to dismantle the very foundation of popular sovereignty that the people of Zimbabwe fought for over decades.
The logic presented—that because we do not vote directly for judges or chiefs, we should forfeit the right to vote for a president—is a profound category error that ignores the fundamental difference between administrative delegation and political legitimacy.
To suggest that democracy is by its nature about electoral colleges is to confuse the machinery of the state with the soul of the republic.
While it is true that modern governance involves various tiers of representation, the presidency occupies a unique space in a constitutional democracy.
The President is the personification of the national will, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the primary holder of executive authority.
To compare this role to that of a judge or a traditional leader is a disingenuous conflation of roles.
Judges are appointed through the Judicial Service Commission specifically because they are not meant to be political actors.
Their legitimacy comes from their impartiality and legal expertise, not from a popular mandate.
We do not vote for judges because we want them to be insulated from the shifting winds of public opinion.
Conversely, we vote for a president precisely because we want them to be accountable to those winds.
By equating the two, Mangwana’s argument suggests that political leadership is a technocratic exercise rather than a democratic one.
The reference to Section 180 of the Constitution—which governs the appointment of judges—as a “glaring hole” in the opposition’s argument is particularly hollow.
The Judicial Service Commission is not an electoral college in any meaningful sense.
It is a meritocratic screening body.
Its purpose is to ensure that those who interpret the law are qualified to do so.
A president, however, does not merely interpret the law.
They set the national agenda, manage the economy, and represent the nation on the global stage.
These are functions that require a direct social contract between the governed and the governor.
When a citizen casts a ballot for a president, they are granting a specific, personal mandate for a specific vision of the country.
This mandate cannot be subcontracted to a group of Members of Parliament without diluting the voter’s power to a point of irrelevance.
The argument further stumbles when it attempts to use the election of mayors and chiefs as a precedent for Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 (CAB3).
Local government and traditional leadership operate under different spheres of authority and historical context.
A mayor leads a city council, often with powers strictly circumscribed by national legislation.
A chief is a custodian of culture and communal land, whose role is defined by lineage and custom.
Neither of these roles holds the supreme executive power of the state.
To argue that because a city of millions is managed by a mayor chosen by councillors, a nation of millions should have a president chosen by MPs, is to ignore the hierarchy of power.
The stakes of the presidency are total.
The accountability must, therefore, be direct.
Furthermore, Mangwana’s reliance on the United States Electoral College as a “model” of democratic maturity is intellectually lazy and historically blind.
The American system is not a gold standard to be emulated; it is a 230-year-old historical compromise designed to balance the interests of 18th-century slave-holding states.
It is a system currently under intense internal fire precisely because it has, on five separate occasions, subverted the will of the majority—most notably in 2000 and 2016, where the candidate with the most popular votes was denied office.
In the United States, the “winner-take-all” allocation of electors and the disproportionate weight given to smaller regions are viewed by many Americans as a violation of the “one person, one vote” principle.
To hold up such a flawed, archaic, and widely criticized foreign mechanism as a justification for Zimbabwe’s retreat from direct democracy is a strange form of neo-colonial logic.
It suggests that Zimbabwe should adopt the very “math of disenfranchisement” that millions of Americans are currently fighting to abolish.
Zimbabweans did not struggle for a new constitution in 2013 just to inherit the discarded errors of a foreign past.
We moved toward a direct mandate because it is the most transparent and legitimate way to confer power in a modern African state.
The most dangerous aspect of the argument for CAB3 is the claim that authority “deriving from the people” does not require direct voting.
While technically true that the people can delegate authority, the question is whether they have consented to this specific delegation.
The 2013 Constitution was born of a rigorous, nationwide consultative process and a subsequent referendum where the people explicitly chose a presidential system with a direct mandate.
For a sitting Parliament to now use its majority to amend that fundamental structure is a bypass of the sovereign will.
It is a tactical maneuver to insulate the executive from the very people who supposedly provide that authority.
If Members of Parliament are to choose the president under our current electoral framework, the presidency is reduced to a mere creature of the legislature.
This fundamentally shatters the separation of powers.
Unlike the South African model—where a President is chosen by a Parliament that is a direct, proportional reflection of the national popular vote—Zimbabwe’s “First-Past-The-Post” system allows for a distorted parliamentary majority that does not necessarily reflect the majority of the people.
To move toward a parliamentary selection of the President without adopting Total Proportional Representation is a calculated act of disenfranchisement.
It creates a closed-loop system where the executive can hide behind the shield of parliamentary whipping, making it nearly impossible for the public to punish a failing leader.
A president who owes their office to a party caucus rather than the citizens in the streets will always be beholden to that caucus.
This is not the “mature evolution” of democracy—it is its castration.
It strips the presidency of its national appeal and transforms it into a prize for internal party politicking, shielded from the direct accountability that only a national ballot can provide.
The argument that critics are simply “afraid of losing” is a classic rhetorical deflection.
The issue is not about who wins or loses—it is about how the game is played and who gets to hold the whistle.
When you change the rules of the game mid-stream to ensure that the referees (the MPs) pick the winner instead of the fans (the voters), you are not improving the game.
You are admitting that you no longer trust the fans to make the right choice.
Democracy is indeed about representation, but representation is not a blank check to be traded among elites.
It is a live, breathing relationship that requires regular, direct renewal.
The proposed shift to an electoral college via CAB3 is an admission of fear.
It is the sound of a political class barricading the doors of the state house against the very people it claims to serve.
To suggest that the people are “entangled in their own mangled arguments” for wanting to keep their vote is the height of arrogance.
The argument for direct presidential elections is simple and ironclad.
If the power belongs to the people, the people should be the ones to give it away.
No intermediary, no commission, and no parliamentary caucus can ever truly substitute for the collective, direct voice of a nation.
Any attempt to convince us otherwise is not an analysis of democracy—it is a eulogy for it.
- 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