The trouble with Zanu-PF's Resolution Number 1

A YEAR ago, at its annual Conference, Zanu-PF passed the notorious Resolution No. 1. The resolution, a vulgar piece of unmitigated buffoonery, attempts to extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa's tenure beyond the term fixed by congress in 2022 and effectively calls for subverting the national constitution to achieve that end.

The measure is both egregious and unlawful, chiefly because it conflicts with Zanu-PF's own constitutive instruments.
Congress v Conference

Zanu-PF's congress, which meets once every five years, is the party's supreme decision-making body.
Depending on which of the three unratified 2022 constitutions one reads, this authority is set out in section 23 or 27 in materially similar terms. The provision confers on Congress the following powers:

"Congress shall be the supreme policy-making organ of the Party and shall have the following powers and functions:-

(1) to elect the President and First Secretary of the Party, who shall automatically become the sole candidate of the State President in the ensuing elections;"

In accordance with this provision, congress in 2022 elected Mnangagwa as Zanu-PF's candidate for the 2023 elections. This election was for a five-year period.

By design, congress is the body that meets to select the party's candidate for any general elections and Mnangagwa's incumbency draws its lifeblood from the 2022 congress resolution. No Zanu-PF member can seek or maintain state or party power as the president post 2028 without the authority of Congress.

Two points emerge and must detain me:

- the party constitution is tailored so that congress precedes a general election for the purpose of selecting a presidential candidate; and

- as a contractual and constitutional instrument, the party constitution cannot validly contain provisions that conflict with the national constitution and any such conflicting provision is void.

Thus, there is no valid basis within Zanu-PF's constitution for declaring a candidate beyond the 2028 elections more so if this is coming from an organ inferior to congress. Any attempt to do so would violate the party's own constitution and would subordinate congress to the Mai Welly-twerking-transactional politics that we now see on display

The national conference meets annually and its powers include receiving central committee reports, reviewing implementation of central committee programmes, making resolutions for implementation by the central committee declaring the president elected at congress as the party's state presidential candidate.

Outside a determination made by congress and that only for a period of five years, the national conference cannot transact any business bearing on the question of a national leader as is the purport of Resolution 1.

Crucially, the national conference does not have the power to elect the party's presidential candidate; it can only declare an election already made by congress.

Last year's conference resolution purporting to elect or rather select Mnangagwa for a period outside that fixed by congress, and calling for subversion of congress's decision to achieve the purpose, was therefore unlawful under any of the three constitutional texts that are fraudulently used by Zanu-PF.

Mnangagwa's position is not a legitimate matter for internal debate at this year's conference. In fact concerned Zanu-PF members can stop their party-either by judicial decree or through legitimate political maneuvering-from becoming engaged with this issue.

Put in very simple terms, the question of the possible extension of Mnangagwa's position cannot be debated by the national conference. It is an act ultra vires.

Zanu-PF must abide by its own rules and by the national constitution. It cannot lawfully transact business in breach of those instruments or call for their subversion. This festival of absurdities and illegality must be stopped.

The men within Zanu-PF, if there be any (not vanoda kuchengeta vana), should confront these breaches and insist on adherence to both the party constitution and the constitution of the land.