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Message: [QUOTE="Queen, post: 86457, member: 27"] Zimbabwe's ruling party is cooking up constitutional changes that would kill off direct presidential votes, stretch terms to seven years, and hand the executive branch near-total control. The presidential election system gets gutted completely [LIST] [*]Direct public voting for the president would be scrapped under the proposals. [*]Parliament would pick the head of state in a joint sitting instead. [*]The dominant party controlling the legislature would essentially crown the president automatically. [*]Public participation and perceived legitimacy of leadership would take a nosedive. [/LIST] Term limits and legislative power grabs [LIST] [*]Presidential and parliamentary terms would balloon from five to seven years each. [*]The president could appoint 10 extra senators to boost executive sway. [*]These handpicked legislators would likely rubber-stamp the executive's agenda without pushback. [*]Legislative independence and oversight capacity would get kneecapped by the appointments. [/LIST] Electoral machinery gets reorganized and centralized [LIST] [*]The voters' roll would shift from the Electoral Commission to the Registrar-General. [*]Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi is set to present the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill. [*]A separate Delimitation Commission would handle constituency boundary decisions going forward. [*]Critics worry the Registrar-General's executive ties will compromise voter registration transparency. [/LIST] Judicial appointments and military duties face alterations [LIST] [*]Public interviews for judicial appointments would be eliminated from the process. [*]Defence Forces would act "in accordance with the Constitution" rather than actively upholding it. [*]The Zimbabwe Gender Commission would be dissolved, with its functions absorbed by the Human Rights Commission. [*]Removing public scrutiny from judicial picks could politicize the bench, according to critics. [/LIST] [/QUOTE]

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