If constructing roads and dams earns a term extension, how many years for a leader who actually ends poverty?

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

The state media machinery has been working overtime to frame the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No. 3 Act, 2026, as a historic necessity. 

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We are told that extending presidential and parliamentary terms from five to seven years is a masterstroke for “continuity and stability.” 

The state proudly gestures toward its ledger of concrete and tarmac—resurfaced highway corridors, newly commissioned dams, and rural borehole drilling projects—as undeniable proof of developmental success. 

But this official narrative invites a fundamental question about the true metrics of national leadership.

If constructing roads and dams is a benchmark for a term extension, then one wonders how many years will be given to the leader who actually uplifts Zimbabweans out of poverty?

There is a profound, almost tragic irony in using basic infrastructure as a justification for altering the supreme law to prolong executive power. 

Roads, bridges, and dams are not acts of political charity; they are the fundamental, routine obligations of any functioning government. 

They are what citizens pay taxes for. 

To package the completion of a few engineering projects as an extraordinary achievement worthy of a two-year bonus in office is the height of political hubris. 

It treats the basic minimum of public administration as a historic favor that the populace must repay with their democratic rights.

More importantly, this focus on physical structures deliberately obscures the devastating human reality unfolding across Zimbabwe. 

A nation is not made of concrete; it is made of people. 

And by any honest human metric, the legacy of the past nine years is one of severe economic regression. 

In 2017, extreme poverty—those forced to survive on less than $2.15 a day—stood at a distressing 30 percent. 

Today, that figure has climbed to a shocking 40 percent of the population. 

Similarly, lower-middle poverty, measured at the $3.65-a-day mark, has spiked from 53.5 percent in 2017 to a staggering 64.5 percent today, while upper-middle poverty at $6.85 a day now hovers at a near-total 85 percent.

When nearly two-thirds of a country is trapped below the poverty line, claims of a “sustained transformation” ring completely hollow. 

The state may boast about macroeconomic growth figures, but those abstract percentages do not translate to the dining tables of ordinary citizens. 

Millions of Zimbabweans have been systematically pushed out of formal employment and into the precarious world of street vending and backyard survival strategies. 

A rehabilitated highway or a drilled borehole does little to change the material reality of a family that cannot afford basic healthcare, school fees, or a stable meal. 

True development is measured by human dignity, financial security, and upward mobility, not by how much asphalt has been laid down while the populace sinks deeper into destitution.

The reluctance to subject this term extension to a direct, democratic test reveals the ruling establishment’s own awareness of this disconnect. 

The 2013 Constitution was explicitly designed with safeguards to prevent sitting officials from amending the law to extend the length of time they occupy office without a national referendum. 

Bypassing the secret ballot box in favor of parliamentary majorities and controlled public hearings exposes a fundamental anxiety. 

If the state’s developmental record were truly a source of national consensus and gratitude, there would be no reason to fear a direct vote from the people.

Ultimately, leadership that measures its success by physical monuments while ignoring human degradation is built on a false premise. 

If a government expects to be rewarded with more time in power simply for patching up roads and building dams, it has fundamentally misunderstood its mandate. 

The true benchmark of monumental leadership is the eradication of poverty and the liberation of its people from economic hardship. 

Until a leader achieves that, demanding more time in office is not an act of service—it is merely a preservation of privilege at the expense of a struggling nation.

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