Prominent lawyer and businessman Tawanda Nyambirai has stepped into the intensifying storm around Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3, arguing that if circulating summaries are accurate, the proposed changes cannot lawfully proceed without a referendum.
“If the summaries circulating are accurate,” he wrote, “I struggle to see how the proposed changes could be effected without triggering a referendum under Section 328 of the Constitution,” said Nyambira in a post on X where he stated that he was responding to repeated tagging over an earlier October 2025 opinion.
Nyambirai had indicated in October 2025 that there was a legal loophole that could allow a presidential term extension without a referendum. In the latest post, he said that he had thought that the Ziyambi Ziyambi led 2030 camp would invoke the pandemic clause based on the Covid-19 outbreak, effectively deducting the pandemic period from the five-year count.
That approach, he suggests, would at least have confined the legal debate to whether such a technical insertion amounted to altering a term-limiting clause under Section 328.
But from what he now gathers, the route reportedly taken appears broader, more direct, and more vulnerable to constitutional scrutiny.
He said Section 328 protects term-limiting provisions from being altered without direct approval by voters in a referendum.
Nyambirai also pointed to Section 158, which governs the timing of general elections. It requires that elections be held not more than 30 days before the expiry of the five-year period set out in Section 143.
Section 143 is explicit: Parliament’s term is five years.
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While Section 158 may not technically be a “term-limiting provision,” Nyambirai argues it creates strong constitutional grounds to challenge any extension of tenure.
“As for Parliament, Section 143 is unequivocally term-limiting,” he noted. “Absent some genuine constitutional innovation, it is difficult to see how it could be amended without a referendum.”
Nyambirai’s comments come alongside a live Constitutional Court application spearheaded by Madhuku on behalf of war veterans.
In that urgent application, the applicants argue that the President failed to fulfil his constitutional obligations in relation to Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 and challenge the legality of presiding over and chairing Cabinet deliberations on a constitutional alteration that may affect tenure.
While Madhuku’s suit focuses on procedural and jurisdictional questions, Nyambirai’s analysis zeroes in on substance: even if procedure is followed, can the amendment bypass a referendum?
Together, the two positions create a layered constitutional confrontation:
- Procedural attack: Was the amendment process constitutionally sound?
- Substantive attack: Does the nature of the amendment automatically trigger a referendum?
If both arguments gain traction, the Bill faces pressure on two fronts.
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