The amendment that ends the ballot
On 18 June 2026, Zimbabwe’s National Assembly passed the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 3) Bill, with 216 lawmakers voting in favour, comfortably clearing the 187-vote threshold needed for a two-thirds majority. The bill’s headline effect is structural: it would postpone elections due in 2028 to 2030 and extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term from five to seven years, while also shifting presidential elections from a direct popular vote to selection by Parliament.
This is not a minor procedural tweak. The amendment would also enlarge the Senate with ten presidential appointees, establish a new Electoral Delimitation Commission, transfer voters’ roll functions to the Registrar-General, and repeal the Gender Commission and the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, institutions originally designed as checks on executive power. Critics argue the package would erode the democratic gains of the 2013 Constitution and weaken checks and balances, while the government insists the changes are "constructive reforms" meant to strengthen democratic structures and promote long-term stability.
The process leading here has been anything but clean. Public hearings, a constitutionally mandated step, were marred by chaos: human rights lawyer Doug Coltart was assaulted and had his phone taken and glasses broken at a Harare hearing, while critics elsewhere were drowned out by boos, heckling and intimidation. Opposition figure Tendai Biti was detained on bail after allegedly holding an unsanctioned meeting opposing the amendments. Legal resistance has so far failed: court challenges from activists and liberation-war veterans were struck off the roll this week on technical grounds.
A familiar continental playbook
Mnangagwa’s manoeuvre fits a well-worn pattern across the region, incumbents who, rather than amending term limits outright, recalibrate the electoral calendar or selection method to the same effect. What distinguishes Zimbabwe’s case is the irony of its provenance: Mnangagwa himself came to power via the 2017 military coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, a leader whose own 37-year rule became shorthand for African gerontocracy. Should the amendment pass the Senate and survive constitutional review, Mnangagwa, now 83, would join a club of the world’s oldest and longest-serving African leaders.a roster that already includes Cameroon’s Paul Biya and Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang. The bill still requires Senate approval, but ZANU-PF controls the upper chamber largely through traditional leaders and other proxies who reliably vote with the party, making passage all but assured.
$5 More, Same Old Story
Against this backdrop, Cabinet’s wage announcement reads almost like political theatre. On 16 June, ministers approved raising the minimum wage for domestic workers from $85 to $90, with workers in unclassified operations rising to $270, both payable in local currency, drawing on recommendations from the tripartite Wages and Salaries Advisory Council, presented by Labour Minister Edgar Moyo. Within the category, cooks and housekeepers will earn $99, child and disability minders $108 (up from $95), and Red Cross-certified carers $117 (up from $100).
The comparison that matters most is the one government would rather avoid: domestic workers remain excluded from the dramatically higher benchmark set for the rest of the workforce. They were left out of Zimbabwe’s $150 monthly minimum wage introduced in December 2024, meaning the country’s most undervalued labour sector, predominantly women, sits at barely 60% of the floor guaranteed elsewhere. As labour analyst Ricardo Vale notes, the legal minimum wage for domestic work is typically revised only once a year, while a ZDAWU representative points out that domestic workers remain Zimbabwe’s most lowly paid and largely unregulated, since they fall outside any National Employment Council.
There is a genuine silver lining buried in the macro data: Zimbabwe’s currency, the ZiG, has stabilised, with year-on-year inflation falling to 3.8% in February 2026 under tight monetary policy, strong gold prices and reserve accumulation, a remarkable turnaround for a country that recorded 175% inflation in 2023 and hyperinflation exceeding 700% historically. But low headline inflation cannot erase years of cumulative currency collapse, and a $5 nominal increase changes little when measured against that scar tissue.
The bigger picture
Both stories share a common thread: institutional power consolidating at the top while the bargaining power of ordinary Zimbabweans, voters and domestic workers alike, remains structurally constrained. One reform extends a presidency by two years through Parliament rather than the ballot box; the other extends a paycheque by $5 through Cabinet decree rather than collective bargaining. Neither was won by the people most affected.
Written by:
*Dr Iqbal Survé
Past chairman of the BRICS Business Council and co-chairman of the BRICS Media Forum and the BRNN
*Sesona Mdlokovana
Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group
Africa Specialist
**The Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.
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