National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) leader, Lovemore Madhuku said that a constitutional clause that allows a sitting president’s party to appoint his or her successor in the event of incapacitation or impeachment should be scrapped.
Madhuku made the remarks at a Heal Zimbabwe Trust organised a public discussion on the contentious Constitutional Amendment No. 2 which seeks to do away with the Running Mate clause. Said Madhuku:
We must never put in the constitution of Zimbabwe that if a sitting president dies or resigns, we will wait to hear what the political party of that president is saying. No, that is not the best way to run a country.
A country is run on the basis of either an election or you have parliament aided institutions sitting as an electoral college…but never to allow a political party to sit there and say we are giving you a president.
In November 2017 President Emmerson Mnangagwa was brought back from self-imposed exile by the ruling ZANU PF party after he had fled the country following his sacking as Vice President by the then President Robert Mugabe.
Mnangagwa, who had been fired from the party, was only able to return to Zimbabwe after the military launched a coup and forced Mugabe to resign.