HARARE – Parliament sat past midnight on Tuesday after opposition Citizens Coalition for Change legislators mounted a sustained rearguard action to prevent the government from rushing the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill (No. 3) through its second reading debate without every member who wished to speak being given the floor.

Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi arrived in the chamber at the start of the sitting evidently expecting to close the second reading debate and proceed to committee stage. His opening remarks – noting that a record 120 members had already debated the Bill — were intended to signal that enough had been said. Opposition members, although few in number, disagreed emphatically.

“I humbly want to know: are we closing the debate, because I thought we are continuing with the debate,” said Dangamvura MP Prosper Mutseyami, rising on a point of order as Ziyambi moved to respond to the debate. “I and others are yet to debate.”

The deputy speaker Tsitsi Geza initially suggested the remaining members could debate at committee stage, prompting a fresh round of objections from the opposition benches.

Marondera Central MP Caston Matewu was the first to force the issue, arguing on a point of order that all 210 constituency representatives and all 10 provinces were entitled to be heard before the debate was closed.

“We cannot adjourn this debate until Hon. Members have represented their constituencies; it is their right to be heard,” Matewu told the House. “Marondera, Chiredzi, Hwange, Bulawayo and Harare constituencies must be heard before we close this debate. We shall not allow, Madam Speaker, to close this debate until we have been heard.”

Faced with noisy resistance, the government retreated. Zanu PF chief whip Pupurai Togarepi proposed that members each be limited to 10 minutes rather than the usual 20, with a list of 54 speakers still outstanding.

Matewu objected, insisting standing rules entitled every member to 20 minutes, but the deputy speaker ruled that 10 minutes would apply and debate resumed.

Matewu’s own turn to debate ended in his removal from parliament. He rose to deliver what he described as his message from “the resilient people of Marondera Central,” declaring his “absolute and unyielding opposition” to the Bill and arguing that the 2013 constitution was “a sacred covenant written in the ink of national consensus” that the amendment sought to dismantle.

“This Bill is not a constitutional amendment; it is not an administrative reform, nor a technical correction,” he said. “It is a fundamental attempt to alter the relationship between the people of Zimbabwe and the State without first consulting Zimbabweans.”

Ziyambi interrupted on a point of order, insisting there was nothing in the Bill that killed democracy, but the deputy speaker told him he would have the chance to respond to all submissions and allowed Matewu to continue.

“Clause 2 provides that we eliminate the direct popular election of the president and instead hand it over to the power of a joint sitting of parliament,” Matewu continued. “Why should the people surrender a democratic right that we already possess? Why should the Zimbabwean voter lose the right to directly elect a president of their choice in this republic?”

The deputy speaker intervened twice to tell Matewu his time was up. He disputed the count, insisting he had spoken for only two minutes and was entitled to more. When he refused to take his seat after a final warning, Geza asked him to leave the House.

Kuwadzana MP Chalton Hwende immediately raised a point of order, arguing that the 10-minute limit had been an arrangement reached outside the standing rules, and that a member could not be ejected for insisting on his entitlement under those rules. The protest drew further disorder from the opposition benches but did not reverse the ruling.

One of the most passionate contributions of the day came from Ellen Shiriyedenga, the CCC proportional representation member for Harare Province.

“The million-dollar question therefore is: does the Constitution Amendment (No. 3) Bill deepen constitutional democracy or weaken it?” she asked. “In my respectful view, CAB3 should be rejected because it threatens the core values of constitutional democracy instead of protecting the people’s rights to choose their leaders and hold them accountable.”

Shiriyedenga took the Bill apart clause by clause. On judicial appointments, she argued that removing public interviews for lower court judges under Clause 14 stripped away transparency and public confidence in the bench.

“Courts are supposed to act as neutral guardians of the law,” she said. “Any changes in their appointment procedures giving the executive more influence affects the independence of the judiciary, which is contrary to Section 164 of our constitution, which is clear that the independence, impartiality and effectiveness of the courts are central to the rule of law and democratic governance.”

On the proposed removal of delimitation duties from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, she warned that handing the function to a new commission appointed under Section 320, which gives the president prerogative over such appointments, would compromise the body’s independence from the outset.

“What is exciting about this debate,” she observed, “is that even colleagues from the ruling party have complained about the conduct of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, which we as the opposition have been complaining about; in a way, we have been vindicated.”

She also challenged the minister’s claim that the voters’ roll provisions had been motivated by opposition proposals, saying the government had adopted only part of what opposition members had recommended. Their recommendation, she said, had been for automatic voter registration with the registrar-general’s civil registry used as a parallel check on ZEC’s roll, not a wholesale transfer of the roll away from the commission.

“The issue is that instead of us debating this amendment bill, we should be focused more on aligning the Electoral Act to the constitution,” she concluded.

Kadoma Central MP Miriam Mambipiri delivered one of the opposition’s more rhetorically charged contributions, accusing the government of attempting to restore what she called an imperial presidency and warning that the Bill would undo the democratic provisions of the 2013 constitution.

“The constitutional amendments were fathered by the executive and are simply being midwifed here in Mt Hampden, far away from the people, and for that they must be rejected,” she told the House.

Mambipiri dismissed the government’s argument that a two-year extension of the presidential term from five to seven years was needed to allow development projects to be completed, noting that the Harare-Bulawayo road dualisation commissioned in 2005 remained unfinished after 25 years.

“If we were to allow the president who was there then to stay in power until that project ended, it simply means we would still be having the same president 25 years later,” she said.

Zanu PF members were equally vocal in the Bill’s support. Togarepi warned at one point that the party was prepared to sit through the night to exhaust the speakers’ list, should the opposition insist on every member taking the full allocation.

The debate ran from 2:15PM to after midnight, with Ziyambi eventually moving the adjournment at 12:22AM, citing commitments he had made to fellow ministers, among them home affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe and energy minister July Moyo, to allow them to address the House on technical aspects of the voters’ roll and delimitation provisions before the committee stage commenced.

“In other words, we had over 200 Members debating. I will reconcile with the clerks tomorrow and when I respond, I will give an accurate figure but it is a record that I don’t believe will be broken in a very, very long time,” Ziyambi said, acknowledging the scale of participation.

Debate was adjourned to Wednesday, with the minister’s response speech, contributions from Kazembe and Moyo, a submission from the attorney general on the drafting instructions, and the committee stage all still to come.

The Bill is expected to be put to a vote in the National Assembly before the end of the week.

Political analysts expect it to sail through as President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Zanu PF party has ​a two-thirds majority in the lower house and also overwhelmingly controls ​the upper house through traditional leaders and other proxies who generally vote with it, ‌giving ⁠it the numbers to change the constitution.

Mnangagwa, 83, is meant to step down in 2028 after serving two ​five-year stints, but Zanu PF ⁠wants to change the constitution to extend presidential terms from five years ​to seven.

Zanu PF also wants presidents to be elected by parliament rather than ​by direct popular vote.

A group of retired generals and former civil servants thought to be loyalists of vice president Constantino Chiwenga have publicly voiced their ​opposition to the bill. Some reports have claimed Zanu PF MPs leaning towards Chiwenga might snub the vote in a bid to torpedo it by denying the National Assembly a quorum, but there has been no sign – at least publicly- of dissent from Zanu PF benches.