FROM CA1 TO CAB3: MNANGAGWA’S REMARKABLE TALENT FOR BURNING THE BRIDGES HE USED TO CROSS
By Reason Wafawarova
There is something almost admirable about President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Not many politicians possess the discipline to destroy every single ladder, bridge, staircase and emergency exit they used on their journey to power.
Most leaders at least preserve one bridge for sentimental reasons.
Not ED.
He seems determined to become the first President in Zimbabwean history who, after crossing a bridge, immediately appoints a commission to investigate why the bridge existed in the first place before ordering its demolition.
Constitutional Amendment No. 1 was merely warm-up exercises.
Constitutional Amendment No. 2 removed the Running Mate clause, politely informing General Constantino Chiwenga that being the man who helped deliver State House should not be confused with being next in line to occupy it.
Now comes the billion-dollar grand finale.
CAB3.
If signed into law, it completes a constitutional trilogy that has remarkably little to do with improving the lives of Zimbabweans and almost everything to do with improving the sleeping patterns of one Zimbabwean.
The curious thing about Mnangagwa’s presidency is that he has spent more time dismantling the coalition that brought him to power than governing the country that coalition handed him.
November 2017 was never a textbook constitutional transfer of power.
It was a political joint venture.
The military supplied the hardware. The people supplied the software. The courts supplied the paperwork afterwards. Everyone played their assigned role.
Without the soldiers there was no transition. Without the people there was no legitimacy. Without the judges there was no certificate of authenticity.
The arrangement worked beautifully.
Until one partner decided to keep the company and fire all the shareholders.
The first casualty was the voter. Remember when Zimbabweans were told they were reclaiming their country?
That appears to have come with terms and conditions written in microscopic print.
Today, the voter exists mainly as decoration during elections and as an inconvenience thereafter.
Recalls became the constitutional version of remote control television.
If Parliament produced channels the Executive did not enjoy watching, someone simply pressed the Tshabangu button and changed the programme.
The remarkable thing was not that MPs disappeared.
It was that democracy was expected to continue as though nothing unusual had happened.
Inside ZANU PF things have become equally fascinating.
Political parties usually survive through internal debate. This one increasingly survives through internal silence.
Loyalty has replaced competence. Agreement has replaced discussion.
The safest opinion in the party is the President’s opinion. Even when it changes halfway through the meeting.
Then came the military. Here lies the greatest irony.
The institution that made the “new dispensation” possible has gradually been converted into an interested spectator.
Removing the Running Mate clause was rather like inviting someone to help build your house and then changing the locks before they finish unpacking their toolbox.
The message was unmistakable. Thank you for your service. Your services are no longer required.
Now CAB3 proposes something even more elegant.
Instead of succession following a predictable constitutional pathway, Parliament becomes the referee.
Ordinarily, that might sound democratic.
Except this is a Parliament whose composition has itself been shaped by recalls, patronage and executive influence.
It is rather like asking a football referee to remain neutral after appointing him as captain of one of the teams.
Lawyers will naturally remind us that no Vice President ever possessed an automatic constitutional right to succeed the President.
Quite correct.
Neither does a chicken possess a constitutional right to cross the road.
Yet everyone understands what usually happens once it begins crossing.
Politics has never been about legal technicalities alone.
It has always been about expectations, conventions and balances.
CAB3 is less about correcting constitutional imperfections than ensuring every possible route around one man eventually leads back to the same man.
Perhaps that is the greatest misunderstanding of all.
Power can purchase loyalty. It cannot manufacture legitimacy.
Constitutions can be amended. Political memory cannot.
Parliament can be managed. Public opinion eventually develops management problems of its own.
History possesses an irritating habit.
It refuses to cooperate with leaders who confuse control with permanence.
Every leader believes they have finally perfected the machinery of power. Then history quietly changes the operating system.
Mnangagwa may well sign CAB3. He may extend his political horizon.
He may temporarily outmanoeuvre rivals inside his party and neutralise institutions outside it.
But every amendment designed to reduce the role of the people increases the importance of the moment when the people eventually decide they want their Constitution back.
If CAB3 becomes law, perhaps Zimbabweans should stop treating it as merely another constitutional amendment.
Perhaps it should instead become the starting gun for a citizen-led campaign to restore the 2013 Constitution to the balance it possessed before constitutional engineering became a substitute for national development.
After all, constitutions exist to restrain those in power.
Once those in power begin treating the Constitution as a personal home-improvement project, it is usually the citizens who eventually call in the demolition crew.
And that may prove to be the one bridge President Mnangagwa cannot afford to burn.