Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye: SPECIAL REPORT— Six big red flags in ED’s treasonous 2030 bid …...as Jonathan Moyo cements his political harlotry credentials

By Luke Tamborinyoka

Once again, Zimbabwe’s notorious constitutional delinquent appears hell-bent on tearing asunder the sacred charter of our land in his treasonous quest to die in office, in the process quashing his own naked lie to Zimbabweans and the world that he is an avowed constitutionalist who will not stay any day longer beyond the expiry of his term in 2028.

The other traitorous clause in this despicable Bill is the one that seeks to make MPs vote a President for us, in the process taking away the right of millions of Zimbabweans to choose the man or woman they want to govern them.

As the debate around the Zimbabwe Constitutional Amendment Bill (No 3) stokes raging fires across the nation, there are half-a-dozen red flags in this treasonous quest set to be railroaded through a captured Parliament, far away from the ordinary people, themselves the true repository of national sovereignty.

Having twice before tyrannically amended the supreme charter of the land, Emmerson Mnangagwa’s brazen quest to stay beyond his stolen mandate has spawned six big red flags that this treatise seeks to unpack.

1. ED is an unrepentant constitutional delinquent
ED has at least twice before breached the country’s supreme charter, first by unconstitutionally extending the tenure of my namesake Chief Justice Luke Malaba.

The second time was when he unilaterally and illegally, changed the county’s land tenure system and foisted a hand-picked, so-called Land Implementation Committee chaired by blue-eyed boy Kuda Tagwirei, whose remit and mandate usurps that of the Land Commission as defined by the national Constitution.

Today, contrary to his oft-repeated lie that he is a Constitutionalist who will not stay beyond his mandate, the Zimbabwe Constitutional Amendment Bill (No 3) in fact provides ample evidence that ED is a serial Constitutional truant who is not fit for office.

Through this Bill, ED is yet again brazenly breaching his oath of office.

He specifically swore to do three things ie. to defend, uphold and obey the Constitution. He did now swear to amend it, as he is now doing for the third time.

2. Mnangagwa’s aversion to elections and popular mandate
As demanded by the Constitution, the Bill must go to the people through two referenda. But tellingly, he is seeking to avoid the people at all cost.

His aversion of the people raises the legitimate question whether he won elections in 2018 and in 2023. He tellingly appears so suspicious of the people that he is prepared to do all it takes to avoid them.

We have always known that ED is not electable. But his aversion of the people in the current process also betrays the fact that contrary to the lie they told us through their party conference resolutions in Bulawayo and later in Mutare, it is in fact not the people who want him to stay in office beyond the expiry of his mandate.

If the people had truly said they want him to stay on, the regime would not be so afraid to go back to the populace, who have been deliberately sidelined and made strangers to such a gargantuan process that directly affects every facet their daily lives.

3. A festival of vested interests
I am not a lawyer, but I have enough legal knowledge to know that one of the basic principles of natural justice is the principle known as nemo judex in sua causa, which basically means one cannot deliberate on a matter in which they have an interest or in which they stand to benefit.

But when it comes to this treasonous Bill, it has been a festival of vested interests.

Not only did the major beneficiary of this Bill chair the 10 February 2026 Cabinet meeting that approved the principles of this Bill, but the MPs who are themselves set to similarly benefit term extensions of their own will deliberate on this Bill when it comes before Parliament.

Unless we have become a banana republic, just how do interested parties deliberate on their own matter as is currently happening here?

Just on these grounds alone of the vested interests that are fraughting this process, the Constitutional Court must dismiss this treasonous Bill.

But we know that our captured judiciary will okay this absurdity. They they have done it before. In May 2021, High Court Judges Justice Happias Zhou, Justice Jester Charehwa and Justice Edith Mushore ruled that the extension of Malaba’s term was unconstitutional.

But strangely, four months later in September 2021, a Constitutional bench comprising judges who were interested parties as they had been cited in the same matter, quashed the High Court ruling and okayed Mnangagwa’s blatantly unconstitutional extension of my name-sake’s term as Chief Justice.

4, Reversal of the liberation struggle ethos
This treasonous Bill will reverse the gains of the liberation struggle for which so many sons and daughters of this land lost their lives.

Contrary to Ziyambi Ziyambi’s hallucinations, it remains fact that key among the objectives of the liberation struggle was the notion of one-man-one-vote; the quest for universal suffrage so that every Zimbabwean would be able to elect leaders of their choice, notably their own President.

This Bill seeks to take away that right by giving Parliament the powers to elect a President on behalf of millions of Zimbabweans.

By the stroke of his pen through Presidential ascension after Parliament passes this notorious Bill, Emmerson Mnangagwa, himself an interested party in this matter, seeks to disenfranchise millions of Zimbabweans by taking away their right to vote for a President of their choice, a right for which Zimbabwe waged a brutal armed struggle.

So through the stroke of his pen, Mnangagwa seeks to crucify an inalienable right accrued after an armed struggle.

He is worse than Pontius Pilate, who at least had the decency to recuse himself in the callous act of crucifixion.

5. A Presidency for sale—Go and see Victor
It is very clear that Mnangagwa and his preferred successor Kudakwashe Tagwirei know that they are not votable; that they are not electable.

All they have is pilfered lucre. But they also know that they do not have enough money to be able to buy the over 16 million Zimbabweans who are the true repository of national sovereignty. They know that Zimbabweans in their millions are not bribable; are not purchasable.

They have now arrogated the Presidential voting powers to a small purchasable clique called Parliament that is going to be easy for them to buy with their stolen lucre, which lucre we have seen being used to dole out wheels, cash and trinkets to all and sundry in the past few years.

If we allow this treasonous Bill to pass, we would have sold out the country’s highest office to the highest bidder, something akin to commercialising the Presidency by floating it on the stock exchange.

It will mean that a lone, drunken but moneyed voice that can be able to say one morning “Go and see Victor” to a few hundred of the country’s MPs can determine who becomes President in our country, a country which waged a brutal armed struggle to enfranchise millions of black Zimbabweans

We can’t allow that to happen.

Never in our lifetime!

6. Jonathan Moyo cements his political harlotry credentials
It has emerged in recent months—and it is supported by praxis as amply and palpably shown by the evidence on his social media handles—that Jonathan Moyo is one of the architects and key drivers of the Zimbabwe Constitutional Amendment Bill (No 3).

And if anyone was in doubt about that fact, the tummied one confirmed it when he publicly promised to pamper him with a car, including personally availing himself to go and chauffeur the nutty processor if—and when— he lands in Harare from exile.

Moyo, our certified flip flopping political harlot, is back in the fray, this time singing praises for ED and wishing him to die in office, the same man he publicly branded a dictator, a serial election loser, an adulterous murderer, and many other expletives.

Zimbabwe’s renowned turncoat has this time outdone himself in his unmatched prowess on the touchline. As a political harlot, he has shown he is prepared at any given time to offer himself to ZANU PF for a political quickie without any value protection.

This time, like a typical coccote in the red light district of Harare’s Avenues area, he has entered the fray adequately manicured and pedicured, packaging himself as the perfect damsel and desperately flagging down a horny ZANU PF desperate for a political sleepover.

And sleep-over in this case is shorthand for an illegal Presidential term extension!

And Zanu PF is aware of Jonathan Moyo’s chinamwali credentials as a talented political harlot. He can ably and eloquently scream and moan himself hoarse, as he did this past week on the Twitter space debate with professor Mavedzenge where he publicly moaned for ED to remain on top for two more years!

Moyo’s political philandery remains legendary. He is always ready to sell out his soul for 30 pieces of silver. That is why, even if they abuse him and force him into exile, Zanu PF knows that when it requires his unmatched harlotry services, they will always find him ready on the “Touchline”

For Moyo, values are the inconvenient long apparel he wears when there are no “customers.” For him, values and consistency are an irritant he is prepared to hastily strip away any minute on the “touchline” should turgid political scrotums seeking relief dispense enough trinkets!

And we hear the trinkets were US$1,5 million for this particular quickie!

This one can sell his soul for money.

For his sterling work in this dastardly crusade to unconstitutionally keep ED in office beyond the expiry of term, Jonathan Moyo has earned his stripes and has duly confirmed his political harlotry credentials.

And if any of you were scared to do it, then I have cast the first stone!

Finally, as my brother and colleague Brighton Mutebuka noted just a few days ago, there is a very real but tantalising prospect that professor Jonathan Moyo could become the first person in Zimbabwe, if not in history, to be a zealous side-kick to two different Presidents in their Waterloo hours!

Conclusion
Adage says those who the gods want to destroy, they first make mad.

But we must not allow this deranged lot in their madness to tamper with the national Constitution in the absence of a referendum.

We just can’t allow them.

The regime’s provocation through this treasonous Bill must awaken the beast in all of us to fight the fight of our lives in defending a Constitution that we affirmed in a referendum only in May 2013.

Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. He is currently based in England. You can interact with him on his facebook page or via his X handle @luke_tambo.