Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment) Act (No. 3), 2026
Parliament, not voters, will elect Zimbabwe's President; presidential and parliamentary terms rise from five to seven years and apply to those already in office; voter registration and delimitation leave the electoral commission.
This Act rewrites how Zimbabwe chooses a President, how long the President and Parliament serve, who runs the voters' roll, and how judges are appointed. It is the widest set of constitutional changes since 2013, and it was published in an Extraordinary Gazette on 7 July 2026.
The President is no longer elected by the country. Under the new text, members of the Senate and the National Assembly elect the President at a joint sitting held after each general election, and a candidate needs more than half the votes of MPs to win. If nobody clears that bar, the top two go to a run-off in the same chamber. The Electoral Commission still conducts the election, but the electorate for it is Parliament.
Both the President and Parliament now serve seven years instead of five. The Act goes further than changing the number: it expressly sets aside the rule that a term-limit change may not benefit whoever holds the office when it is made, so the longer terms apply to the sitting President and the sitting Parliament rather than only to their successors.
Running elections is split up. Registering voters and keeping the voters' rolls move from the Electoral Commission to the Registrar-General. Drawing constituency and ward boundaries moves to a new Delimitation Commission, appointed by the President and chaired by a Supreme Court judge, which gets eighteen months rather than six to report. The Senate grows from eighty seats to ninety, the ten new ones filled by presidential appointment.
The courts change too. A new office of Judge President of the Supreme Court is created to run that court, while the Chief Justice heads the judiciary and takes charge of the Constitutional Court. Every judge is now appointed by the President after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission. The Constitutional Court gains a general power to hear any matter it grants leave on, where an arguable point of law of general public importance is raised.
Elsewhere: the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission is abolished outright, the Prosecutor-General's terms of service no longer follow Judicial Service Commission advice, at least ten per cent of proportional-representation seats on local councils are reserved for people aged eighteen to thirty-five alongside the existing thirty per cent for women, and chiefs' council terms go from five years to seven. The Act carries no separate commencement provision — read the gazetted text before relying on any of it.
What changed
- The President is elected by members of Parliament at a joint sitting rather than by national vote, with a run-off between the top two if no candidate wins a majority of MPs.
- Presidential and parliamentary terms go from five years to seven, and the usual bar on a term-limit change benefiting the current office-holder is expressly set aside so the longer terms reach the sitting President and Parliament.
- If the presidency falls vacant, a Vice-President acts and Parliament must elect a successor within thirty days; no law making substantive policy changes may be passed in the meantime.
- Voter registration and custody of the voters' rolls move from the Electoral Commission to the Registrar-General.
- Delimitation of constituencies and wards moves to a new Delimitation Commission appointed by the President, with the reporting window widened from six to eighteen months.
- The Senate grows from eighty members to ninety, the ten additional seats appointed by the President.
- A new office of Judge President of the Supreme Court is created; the Chief Justice heads the judiciary and takes charge of the Constitutional Court.
- All judges are appointed by the President after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission.
- The Constitutional Court may hear any matter it grants leave on, where an arguable point of law of general public importance arises.
- The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission is abolished and removed from the list of independent commissions.
Who this affects
- Voters, who no longer cast a ballot for President
- Members of Parliament, who now elect the President
- The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
- The Registrar-General's office
- Judges, and litigants before the Constitutional and Supreme Courts
- Election observers, monitors, and civil society
- Local council candidates, particularly under-35s
- Chiefs' councils and traditional leaders
Plain-language summary — not legal advice. Always read the full instrument.