What is CAB 3? What animal is it?
Citizens, did you hear that it is triggering
and housing a maddening Mount Everest
of predicaments and disappointments?
Not boosting democracy and development?
What is CAB 3? What creature is it? Why CAB 3 now?
It refers to the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment
(No. 3) Bill, 2026. A legislative proposal that seeks
to severely change the nation’s governance context,
and the 2013 Constitution. What are the main changes
that the bill seeks to introduce? And to whose benefit?
It will inflict heavy casualties on civil liberties and justice,
because, voters, it takes away your right to participate
in the direct popular voting of the President. It’s gone!
The 2030 appetite has made a mockery of basic rights
and the 2013 Constitution. Is it not law unto itself?
Citizens, it says the President would be elected by a shared
sitting, rather than by you. Was the liberation war about
this? It desires to extend presidential, parliamentary,
and local authority terms from five years to seven years.
For its advocates who have netted substantial triumphs,
shenanigans aplenty are the norm, not the exception.
For example, it seeks to bluntly take away requirements
for judicial oversight or advice when hiring judges
and the Prosecutor-General. It strips the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC) of the responsibility
for voter registration and the management
of the voters’ roll and conveniently puts it
on the chest of the presidentially appointed
Registrar-General. Can an undeserved penalty
kick or free kick be fair? Is this about the citizens?
On one hand, this new creature
is in the business of taking away rights
from the citizens, on the other, it sees it fit
to fit in extreme power within the executive office.
