HARARE – Zimbabwe is “facing its biggest existential threat,” former finance minister Tendai Biti warned on Monday as the ruling Zanu PF party elevated its calls for a constitutional amendment to extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s rule when his second and final term ends in 2028.

Mnangagwa says he has no ambitions to stay in power beyond 2028, but he has done nothing to stop his supporters from agitating for either a two-year extension to his current term or the scrapping of term limits to allow him to run again for president.

Zanu PF is holding its annual conference in Bulawayo from October 22 to 27, and the divisive term limit rhetoric could open new fissures in the party, with a growingly impatient vice president Constantino Chiwenga likely to lead moves to resist the plan.

Concluding a meeting of its provincial inter-district meeting on Sunday, Zanu PF’s Harare province passed a resolution instructing the party’s legal department to initiate moves to amend the constitution.

“The most critical issue which comes is that the constitution of Zimbabwe must be amended to enable him to continue to lead beyond 2028,” provincial chairman Goodwills Masimirembwa said.

“We are aware that there are constitutional limitations; first of all, it says the president serves for a maximum of two terms of five years each. There is that window of extending the number of years for each term, or tentatively we can remove the term limit from two terms to three terms or scrap the term limit altogether.

Masimirembwa noted that the other limitation was that even if a constitutional amendment was made, it could not benefit the incumbent.

“That as well could be amended to ensure that the incumbent, in other words President Mnangagwa, benefits from any constitutional amendment which increases the number of years of a term or which scraps term limits,” he said.

A constitutional amendment on term limits would require a two thirds majority vote in parliament and a public referendum. Even then, lawyers say the idea that an incumbent can benefit is legally dubious.

Such a move could debt Mnangagwa’s democratic credentials and unite the country’s fractious opposition against him.

Said Biti: “It is now self-evident that the third term agenda is in full throttle. This is the biggest existential threat we face as citizens. The push for a third term will push the country to the brink.”

Biti called for a “common front in defence of the constitution.”

MDC-T leader Douglas Mwonzora has also voiced disquiet with the plan to amend the constitution.

“We have a fundamental difference on the efforts by some in Zanu PF and the opposition to extend the presidential and parliamentary terms,” he said earlier this month. “Zimbabwe has a constitution that is clear on this issue. We say no to the desecration of our constitution.”