Zimbabwe: 2030 No Longer Enough - Zanu-PF Now Pushes to Extend Mnangagwa's Presidency to 2037

What the report says

AllAfrica, carrying a New Zimbabwe report dated 21 July 2026, says ZANU PF’s Harare Province has started advocating for President Emmerson Mnangagwa to remain in leadership beyond 2030, with a push extending his role to 2037. The move comes shortly after Mnangagwa assented to the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 3) Act, 2026.

According to the report, the new amendment postpones Zimbabwe’s next harmonised elections from 2028 to 2030, lengthening the current terms of the president, legislators and councillors by two years. At a “Thank You” rally for the amendment in Epworth over the weekend, Harare Province chairperson Godwills Masimirembwa said the province intends to place a resolution before the party’s next conference calling for Mnangagwa to continue as ZANU PF leader after 2030.

Masimirembwa argued that Mnangagwa should remain party president and first secretary at the 2030 congress, citing development continuity, the government’s Vision 2030 agenda and the president’s liberation war background. The ruling party’s stated position, as reported, is that the constitutional changes will reduce disruption from elections and allow more focus on development programmes.

The amendment remains politically contested. New Zimbabwe reports that opposition parties have gone to the Constitutional Court seeking to invalidate the law, challenging both its substance and the process used to pass it. The dispute matters because it goes to the heart of Zimbabwe’s constitutional limits, electoral timetable and succession politics inside the governing party.