By Hopewell Chin’ono
A group of retired Zimbabwean military generals and senior civil servants who are former liberation war combatants have formally challenged proposed constitutional amendments, warning that the changes will undermine the principle that power must remain in the hands of the people.
In a written submission dated 12 March 2026 and addressed to the Clerk of Parliament at Mt Hampden, the former commanders said the Proposed Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 must be subjected to a national referendum rather than being decided solely by Members of Parliament.
The submission signed on behalf of the retired generals by retired Air Marshal Henry Muchena was made in response to Parliament’s public call for views on the proposed amendments under Section 328(4) of the Constitution, which requires Parliament to invite public participation when considering changes to the supreme law.
Air Marshal Muchena ran the ZANUPF commissariat during the 2013 election together with the former head of Zimbabwe’s counterintelligence service, Sidney Nyanhongo, after they had retired from their respective positions in the Air Force and the secret service.
The retired commanders argued that the liberation struggle was fought to ensure that sovereignty rested with ordinary Zimbabweans rather than a privileged political elite as proposed by the amendments.
“These were not mere slogans and programmes. They were the covenant we made with every Zimbabwean living and dead that sovereignty would rest with the masses, not with the privileged few,” the submission states.
The group warned that allowing a small group of legislators to decide constitutional changes affecting the leadership of the country would contradict the core principles of the liberation struggle.
“Today we are being told only a select few in the persons of Members of Parliament will choose a leader on behalf of 17 million Zimbabweans. This is totally unacceptable.”
The submission also invoked the history of Zimbabwe’s constitutional development, noting that the 2000 constitutional proposals were referred to a referendum and rejected by voters, a result the ruling party accepted at the time.
They also referenced the 2013 Constitution, adopted after a national vote during the Government of National Unity, which they said represented the expressed will of the people.
In the submission, the ex-combatants stressed that Section 212 of the Constitution places a duty on the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to uphold and defend the Constitution, arguing that any attempt to alter its provisions without public consultation would undermine that mandate.
The group also cited the events of November 2017, when the military intervened in Zimbabwe’s political crisis under what was later termed Operation Restore Legacy, saying the intervention was justified because it sought to preserve constitutional order.
The ex-combatants insisted they remain loyal to the ruling party but argued that the national Constitution belongs to all Zimbabweans, not to any political organisation.
“ZANU-PF may govern its own internal affairs as it sees fit, that is the party’s sovereign right. But the national Constitution is not ZANU-PF’s property. It belongs to every Zimbabwean including the millions who have never held a party card in their lives.”
They warned that constitutional changes driven by political expediency risk betraying the sacrifices made during the liberation war.
“We commanded and led men and women into combat. We looked them in the eye and told them that their sacrifice would not be in vain, that their children would inherit a Zimbabwe governed by the people, for the people.”
The group called on Parliament to halt the current process and instead submit the proposed amendments to a nationwide referendum.
“If these amendments are truly in the national interest, let them be put to the people. Call a referendum. Let the same Zimbabweans who gave us that Constitution speak again,” the submission said.
The document was signed on behalf of the retired generals and senior civil servants who are ex-combatants by Air Marshal (Retired) Henry Muchena during the public debate period on the constitutional amendments.
THE full statement
Write a short story from this;
12 March 2026
The Clerk of Parliament
Parliament Building Mt. Hampden
Harare
clerk@parlzim.gov.zw
Dear sir
RE: SUBMISSIONS BY ZIMBABWEAN RETIRED GENERALS AND SENIOR CIVIL SERVANTS WHO ARE EX COMBATANTS
We must first begin with revolutionary salutations.
On the Proposed Constitutional Amendments Number 3 Bill (H.B 1, 2026) and the Sanctity of the People’s Will we are responding in terms of Section 328 (4) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe which reads in part:
“(3) Parliament must invite members of the public to express their views on the proposed Bill in Public meetings and through written submissions and must convene meetings and provide facilities to enable the public to do so”
this is in response to calls by the Clerk of Parliament for submissions as we now do in writing.
We write to you today not as rebels, not as dissenters, and not as enemies of the Party to which we have given our entire lives.
We speak as men who were present when this nation was being born in blood and fire, men who commanded comrades to their deaths with a solemn promise:
that the people of Zimbabwe would one day govern themselves. It is now clear that promise is now under threat we have in the recent past restrained ourselves and we cannot remain silent. We take this opportunity now through our submissions. Let history bear witness to what we endured we shall not be labour Zimbabweans with accounts of a war they are well acquainted with, a war they lived through a war against Smith and his regime our children have been told of on many occasions. Thus, it began:
1. In 1977, it was Gore Re Musangano the year of the people’s party Zanu
2. In 1978, Gore Re Vanhu the year of the people.
3. In 1979 was the year the party moved towards the new dawn of an independent Zimbabwe
4. And in 1980, Gore Re Masimba Evanhu, the year of the power of the people.
These were not mere slogans and programmes. They were the covenant we made with every Zimbabwean living and dead that sovereignty would rest with the masses, not with the privileged few.
We remind those with short memories some of whom sit in Parliament today as members of ZANU PF:
In the earliest days of our party, there was no President after the removal of the late Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole. Power was held collectively, by the people and their representatives. It was not until 1985 at a Congress convened at Borrowdale Racecourse in Harare that a party President was formally elected in the person of the late President Robert Gabriel Mugabe who until then was Secretary General. (It was the people who voted for the President) of ZANU and the position of 1st secretary was established separately from that of Secretary General.
This was by deliberate design. The founding principle was unambiguous: power derives from the people and belongs to the people, and the people alone choose their leaders. That is the philosophy upon which this revolution was built and must remain the same.
We therefore ask, with heavy hearts: are we now reversing everything we bled for through these amendments? Are we returning to the era of Ian Smith, when only a privileged elite the Zvigananda as we called them the likes of Mazaiwana, Gumede and others had the right to participate in governance? Zvigananda have since re surfaced.
Under that shameful system, only Africans of means were permitted to vote. The majority were told, in effect, that their lives did not matter, that their voices were irrelevant. We took up arms to destroy that system. We will not stand by and watch it be quietly rebuilt under a different flag. Today we are being told only a select few in the persons of Members of Parliament will choose a leader on behalf of 17 million Zimbabweans. This is totally unacceptable.
In the year 2002, through the late General Vitalis Zvinavashe a soldier of immense honour, we as senior commanders made our position clear to the nation. We declared that the leadership of Zimbabwe must fit into a straitjacket of principle. The party does not reshape itself around the appetites of its leaders. Leaders reshape themselves around the values of the party and the will of the people. Today, we watch with sorrow as Zvigananda attempt to invert this entirely by bending the nation’s foundational law to serve their own ambitions and protect their own interests. This is the very corruption of purpose that we warned against. The liberation struggle rested on two fundamental pillars: Land, and the universal adult suffrage to vote that is one man, one vote. These were not negotiable then, and they must not be negotiable now.
We did not fight for a Zimbabwe where the majority are spectators in their own country’s affairs. We fought so that every Zimbabwean regardless of wealth, status, or political affiliation would have an equal and inviolable voice.
In the year 2000 we as ZANU PF championed a constitution at the time Parliament did what was true and correct by referring the constitutional proposals to the people through a referendum. The result was the people rejected our proposal, and we accepted the outcome thus respecting the will of the people.
In 2012, Zimbabweans voted for their Constitution. They spoke clearly, deliberately, and with dignity during the tenure of a government formed by the Global Political Agreement.
In Section 212 of that Constitution, the people of Zimbabwe themselves charged the Zimbabwe Defence Forces with the duty to uphold and defend the Constitution. That was not our idea alone it was the expressed will of the nation.
Now, men and women who did not endure a single night in the bush, who never buried a comrade, who did not witness what we witnessed these individuals seek to strip away that constitutional mandate without so much as consulting the people. They seek to do this quietly, without a referendum, without the people’s voice being heard. We frown upon this.
The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe His Excellency Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has said himself, he is a constitutionalist, he respects the will of the people and has said on numerous occasions The Voice of the People is the Voice of God and yet we see brazen disobedience by ambitious opportunists today attempting to undo the will of the people. We will defend our Presidents position, he is our Leader and so should Members of Parliament.
It is for precisely this reason that in November 2017, during Operation Restore Legacy, we deferred to the Constitution. We did not act on personal ambition or factional interest. We acted because the Constitution was the people’s document decided by the people, for the people and it provided the only legitimate framework for resolving the crisis the nation faced at the time as the G40 Cabal attempted to temper with the constitution. That same logic applies today. We are aware that some of these characters in the G40, opportunists, Zvigananda and Johnny Come lately characters are now at the forefront of usurping the will of the people expressed through their constitution.
If these amendments are truly in the national interest, let them be put to the people. Call a referendum. Let the same Zimbabweans who gave us that Constitution speak again. If the amendments have merit, the people will affirm them. If they do not, the people will reject them. Either way, the will of the majority must be the final word.
We wish to be clear on one matter: we are ZANU-PF. We have always been ZANU-PF. We will die ZANU-PF. We are not merely members we are stockholders. This is our party, forged in our sacrifice.
ZANU-PF may govern its own internal affairs as it sees fit, that is the party’s sovereign right. But the national Constitution is not ZANU-PF’s property. It belongs to every Zimbabwean including the millions who have never held a party card in their lives.
Democracy does not permit one party, however powerful, to reshape the nation’s foundational law without the express consent of the people. And democracy demands not only that the majority governs, but that it governs in a manner that protects the rights of the minority.
Why should our party the party in which we are stockholders bully other citizens, most of whom are not members of any political party at all? We did not fight for ZANU PF members alone, we fought for the people. We will not move an inch from this position.
We commanded and led men and women into combat. We looked them in the eye and told them that their sacrifice would not be in vain, that their children would inherit a Zimbabwe governed by the people, for the people. Many of those comrades never came home. They are buried in the soil of this country and in foreign lands. They died with our promise in their ears. Do the architects of these amendments wish to make liars of us? Do they wish us to stand at the graves of our fallen and admit that what we told them was false? That will not happen. Not while we still draw breath.
When we went to war, we did not go in search of opportunity. We went in the full knowledge that death was the most likely outcome. The only opportunity before us was the opportunity to die for our people’s freedom. Those championing these constitutional changes are driven by a different kind of opportunity, the opportunity for personal enrichment, for the consolidation of power, for the protection of privilege. We ask them plainly: what of the generality of Zimbabweans? What of the mother in Binga, the farmer in Chiredzi, the young man in Mbare, our daughters who can only dream of a better future? What is there in these amendments for them?
We are not rebelling. We are exercising the most fundamental right in any democracy the right to speak. We remain loyal to the party, loyal to the nation, and loyal above all to the people of Zimbabwe, in whose name every sacrifice of the liberation struggle was made.
We call on Parliament to do the right thing and submit these proposed amendments to a national referendum, as democratic principles demand. Anything less is not a constitutional amendment. It is a betrayal not of us, but of every Zimbabwean who ever dared to hope for a better country.
We wish to be clear on one matter: we are ZANU-PF. We have always been ZANU-PF. We will die ZANU-PF. We are not merely members we are stockholders. This is our party, forged in our sacrifice.
ZANU-PF may govern its own internal affairs as it sees fit, that is the party’s sovereign right. But the national Constitution is not ZANU-PF’s property. It belongs to every Zimbabwean including the millions who have never held a party card in their lives.
Democracy does not permit one party, however powerful, to reshape the nation’s foundational law without the express consent of the people. And democracy demands not only that the majority governs, but that it governs in a manner that protects the rights of the minority.
Why should our party the party in which we are stockholders bully other citizens, most of whom are not members of any political party at all? We did not fight for ZANU PF members alone, we fought for the people. We will not move an inch from this position.
We commanded and led men and women into combat. We looked them in the eye and told them that their sacrifice would not be in vain, that their children would inherit a Zimbabwe governed by the people, for the people. Many of those comrades never came home. They are buried in the soil of this country and in foreign lands. They died with our promise in their ears. Do the architects of these amendments wish to make liars of us? Do they wish us to stand at the graves of our fallen and admit that what we told them was false? That will not happen. Not while we still draw breath.
When we went to war, we did not go in search of opportunity. We went in the full knowledge that death was the most likely outcome. The only opportunity before us was the opportunity to die for our people’s freedom. Those championing these constitutional changes are driven by a different kind of opportunity, the opportunity for personal enrichment, for the consolidation of power, for the protection of privilege. We ask them plainly: what of the generality of Zimbabweans? What of the mother in Binga, the farmer in Chiredzi, the young man in Mbare, our daughters who can only dream of a better future? What is there in these amendments for them?
We are not rebelling. We are exercising the most fundamental right in any democracy the right to speak. We remain loyal to the party, loyal to the nation, and loyal above all to the people of Zimbabwe, in whose name every sacrifice of the liberation struggle was made.
We call on Parliament to do the right thing and submit these proposed amendments to a national referendum, as democratic principles demand. Anything less is not a constitutional amendment. It is a betrayal not of us, but of every Zimbabwean who ever dared to hope for a better country.
For and on behalf of the Retired Generals and Senior Civil Servants who are Ex Combatants
Air Marshal (Retired) Henry Muchena
Written during the Constitutional Amendment Public Debate Period
END