Mnangagwa Rejects Election Sabbath Proposal
20 October 2019
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PRESIDENT Mnangagwa has rejected proposals by the Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHOCD) to have a seven-year moratorium on elections saying secular systems are run on laws which are bound by constitutions and statutes.

In a 19-page response to ZHOCD delivered yesterday, the President expressed gratitude to the church leaders’ willingness to search for solutions that can take the nation forward, but emphasised that all ideas, proposals and practices should be in compliance with the laws of the land.

“Expectedly, my Government’s response to the ZHOCD document is shaped by, and has to be understood in the context of legal imperatives arising from Zimbabwe’s own laws, principally the Constitution which is the supreme law of the Land.

“Let me emphatically state, at the outset, that my office is a creature of the Constitution and laws of Zimbabwe, both which I am sworn to uphold, defend, obey and respect to their letter and spirit,” the President said.

The President’s response follows a letter written to him by Dr Kenneth Mtata of ZHCOD, which requested that the nation “takes a sabbath period of seven years from all forms of political contestation.”

Dr Mtata’s letter, which was accompanied by a document titled “Call for national Sabbath for trust and confidence building,” proposed the suspension of the constitutional provisions on elections and the holding of a referendum on the structure of a new government.State media