'VPs can also be ministers,' says experts

Legal gurus say there is no constitutional impediment that precludes Zimbabwe's newly-appointed vice presidents from holding ministerial positions at the same time.

This follows heated and ongoing public debates about whether vice presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko should also simultaneously hold ministerial positions, as they both do, particularly seeing that they cannot be legislators by virtue of being VPs where the law demands that members of Cabinet must be Members of Parliament.

Constitutional expert and interim co-leader the United MDC, Welshman Ncube, said his understanding and reading of the Constitution was that President Robert Mugabe could appoint a vice president to be in charge of a certain portfolio.