PART THREE: CAA3 and the Political Economy of Zimbabwe: Why the Working-Class Must Reject Constitutional Authoritarianism

by Tafadzwa Choto

PART THREE: EXPECT RESISTANCE

The constitutional amendments are designed to make a more authoritarian state to counter resistance to elite accumulation, argues Tafadza Choto in the third and final part of this series on the constitutional amendments in Zimbabwe. 

Why CAA3 Is Being Introduced Now

CAA3 is not emerging in a political vacuum. It is being introduced at a moment of deepening social and economic crisis. Millions of Zimbabweans face unemployment, precarious informal work, collapsing public services, low wages, rising living costs, and widespread poverty. While the majority struggle to survive, a small political and economic elite continues to accumulate extraordinary wealth. The current economic growth they are benefiting from drives incentives for constitutional manipulation. As politically connected elites accumulate unprecedented wealth through mining, state tenders, and access to public resources, their need for political stability and protection grows. CAA3 can therefore be understood not merely as an attempt to extend political power but as an effort to safeguard the economic gains of an emerging capitalist class whose fortunes remain dependent upon continued access to the state.

The ruling class understands that such conditions inevitably generate resistance. Recent events have demonstrated growing public anger against corruption, inequality, and elite excess. Across social media and within communities, many Zimbabweans have increasingly questioned how politically connected individuals can accumulate and display extraordinary wealth while hospitals lack medicines, schools remain underfunded, and workers struggle to survive. The ruling elite is acutely aware that such contradictions can generate social unrest. CAA3 must therefore be understood partly as an attempt to strengthen political control before any forms of resistance emerge in Zimbabwe. 

The objective is not constitutional reform for the public good. It is the construction of a more authoritarian state capable of suppressing dissent while protecting elite accumulation. As economic conditions deteriorate, the regime seeks stronger instruments to manage popular discontent, weaken democratic accountability, and limit the capacity of workers, students, communities, and social movements to organise independently.

This follows a familiar historical pattern. During the ESAP era of the 1990s, neoliberal restructuring was accompanied by growing authoritarianism as the state sought to contain the social consequences of economic liberalisation. Today, a new phase of accumulation centred on extractivism, elite patronage, and crony capitalism is once again producing demands for greater political control and reduced democratic oversight.

International actors have largely remained silent. This silence is not accidental. Many of the economic policies being implemented continue to protect the interests of international capital and foreign investors. As long as stability is maintained and access to Zimbabwe’s resources remains secure, democratic backsliding generates limited concern. It is therefore telling that, amidst growing restrictions on democratic space and ongoing constitutional manipulation, Zimbabwe secured a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2027 – 2028. This contradiction reveals the extent to which economic interests often take precedence over genuine commitments to democratic rule.

CAA3 is therefore not simply a constitutional amendment. It is part of a broader project to entrench elite rule, protect accumulated wealth, suppress future resistance, and shield the political and economic elite from accountability at a time when the masses’ anger is growing.

Workers, students, youth, women, peasants, informal traders, and all oppressed people must protest against CAA3.

The struggle against CAA3 is not merely a struggle against one constitutional amendment, one political leader, or one faction of the ruling elite. It is a struggle against capitalism itself—a system based on private ownership, profit accumulation, exploitation, and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a minority. CAA3 represents an attempt to protect and consolidate the interests of Zimbabwe’s emerging capitalist class at a time when the contradictions of the system are becoming increasingly visible. Corruption, austerity, inequality, authoritarianism, and elite accumulation are not accidental features of the current order; they are expressions of a capitalist system that prioritises private profit over human need.

Some may place their hopes in military intervention or manoeuvres by rival factions within ZANU-PF. History repeatedly demonstrates that such solutions do not liberate the working class. They merely replace one elite faction with another while preserving the structures of exploitation and inequality. The military is not an instrument of workers’ emancipation. 

The defence of democracy and social justice rests with the organised power of the working class itself. Workers, students, women, youth, informal traders, the ordinary working class, and progressive social movements must rebuild an independent organisation that says NO TO CAA3, challenging both authoritarianism and capitalist exploitation.

Zimbabwe possesses immense mineral wealth, productive capacity, fertile land, and human capacity. Yet these resources continue to enrich politically connected elites and foreign investors while the majority remain trapped in poverty. A socialist alternative demands democratic control of these resources so that they serve social needs rather than private profit.

The struggle against CAA3 is a struggle AGAINST AUSTERITY, corruption, crony capitalism, and authoritarian rule. NO to CAA3 is a fight for economic democracy, public ownership of strategic resources, redistribution of wealth, decent work, quality public services, and NO to authoritarian rule.

As the crisis of global and Zimbabwean capitalism deepens, the challenge before workers, students, youth, women, peasants, and informal traders is not simply to defend constitutional democracy but to build a socialist alternative. Socialism offers a fundamentally different vision of society: democratic control of the economy by working people, public ownership of strategic resources, democratic planning, wealth redistribution, decent work, universal public services, and production organised for human need rather than private profit. The struggle against CAA3 is therefore inseparable from the struggle for socialism. Reject CAA3. Reject authoritarianism. Reject austerity. Reject capitalist exploitation. Build an independent working-class movement capable of transforming Zimbabwe’s immense wealth into collective prosperity for the majority. 

No to CAA3; No to authoritarianism; No to austerity and elite enrichment – No to Zvigananda; Yes, to democracy, social justice, and workers’ power; Yes, to a socialist Zimbabwe in which the country’s wealth serves the majority rather than a privileged few. Mobilise against the signed Act; mobilise for the July 31 protest, for a total shutdown.