Why 2028 has become a source of fear and visible panic in Zimbabwe

If Zimbabwe were governed by confidence, 2028 would be just another election year.

It would be routine. Predictable. Boring. Instead, it has become a source of visible panic.

Resolutions are being forced at rallies. Constitutions are being “reinterpreted.” Loyalty is being purchased with cars, cash, land, and silence.

And anyone who mentions term limits is treated as a saboteur.

That alone tells us something fundamental:

2028 is not feared because of politics. It is feared because of consequences.

In functional democracies, leaving office is not terrifying. Former leaders write memoirs, lecture, farm, or retire into obscurity. The system protects them because they respected it.

In Zimbabwe, power is not protection—it is immunity. And immunity expires. That is the real terror behind 2028.

For years, the Second Republic has governed through patronage rather than performance. Power has been maintained not by results, but by distribution—who gets what, when, and for how long.

Cars instead of jobs. Cash instead of salaries. Donations instead of development. Loyalty instead of competence.

This system only works while the tap is open.

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The moment elections return as a genuine reckoning, the arithmetic changes. Questions arise that cannot be silenced by slogans:

• How did public contracts become private fortunes?
• Why were billions paid for goods never delivered?
• Who authorised the looting of state institutions?
• Why do relatives of power live better than the nation itself?

These are not ideological questions. They are forensic ones. That is why 2028 must be delayed, diluted, or destroyed. Because elections are dangerous when records exist. Because accountability is fatal to those who ruled by extraction.

Because once power leaves, protection leaves with it.

This explains the sudden romance with constitutional vandalism. The same people who ignored the Constitution for years now claim to be its most creative interpreters. Not out of principle—but survival.

It also explains the desperation to criminalise dissent. A government confident in its legacy does not fear criticism. It debates it. It corrects course.

A government that fears the future arrests its critics, kidnaps voices, and invents enemies.

The irony is cruel:

Those who chant “2030” the loudest are the least certain they will survive 2028—politically, legally, or reputationally.

And so, the country is dragged into a manufactured crisis, not because Zimbabwe demands it, but because a small elite cannot imagine life outside power.

Yet history is unforgiving. No amount of bribery can erase evidence. No amendment can silence memory. No extension can stop time.

2028 is feared because it represents a mirror. And mirrors are dangerous to those who ruled in darkness.

Zimbabwe does not fear elections. Zimbabwean leaders fear what elections will reveal. That is why the idea of a constitutional referendum in 2028 is unimaginable to our President.

That is the truth behind the panic. And that is why 2028 matters—not as a date, but as a reckoning.