The Zimbabwe government is considering amending the Constitution to allow presidential and parliamentary elections to take place at the same time, an official newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Presidential elections are due in 2008, while parliamentary elections are only due in 2010, but Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party was contemplating changing the country’s laws to make the two polls coincide, The Herald reported.
The justice minister’s remarks follow international media reports that Mugabe intends stepping down when his current term ends in 2008.
There was speculation Mugabe might extend his current term to 2010, but The Herald said given the Zimbabwean leader’s remarks abroad, this was now unlikely.
”We can harmonise by cutting short the current parliamentary term from 2010 to 2008 so that come 2008, we have both presidential and parliamentary elections,” Chinamasa told the state-controlled newspaper.
Alternatively, he said they could hold an election for a president to run for just two years from 2008 to 2010, when the country’s next general election is due.
”A third scenario is that we can have an election of a president to serve for seven years, from 2008 to 2015, so that the harmonisation takes place from 2015 onwards,” said Chinamasa.
Mugabe, who was on his way home from the United Nations General Assembly Summit in New York told Britain’s Sunday Times earlier this month that he definitely plans to step down when his current term ends in 2008.
The veteran leader, who has ruled Zimbabwe since the country gained independence from white minority rule in 1980, told the paper that he wanted to rest.
”I want to rest,” he said. ”I’ve no thought of changing my mind. I think I want to retire and the party will choose someone else.”
Mugabe won a six-year term in power in 2002 beating his main rival — opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai — by less than 500 000 votes.
Tsvangirai dismissed Mugabe’s victory, citing electoral fraud, and is still challenging the results in the country’s courts.
Mugabe’s party won parliamentary polls earlier this year, whose results are also disputed.
His Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party won 78 seats to the MDC’s 41, giving the ruling party a clear majority to force through constitutional changes.
Last month ruling party lawmakers changed the Constitution to restrict freedom of movement, set up an upper chamber in Parliament and prevent white farmers from challenging the seizure of their land. – Sapa-DPA