Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) senior journalist Blessed Mhlanga was remanded in custody in Harare on 25 February 2025 pending a bail ruling on 27 February 2025 on charges of transmitting data messages inciting public violence.
Mhlanga appeared before Magistrate Farai Gwitima, with the State represented by Ruvimbo Matyatya and Tafadzwa Jambawo.
The journalist’s lawyer, Chris Mhike, challenged the State’s opposition to bail, arguing the prosecution failed to provide sufficient evidence to justify his detention.
The State called Investigating Officer Detective Chief Inspector Joseph Chitambira, who heads the Criminal Investigations Counter-Terrorism Unit, to the stand. Commenting on that aspect, Mhike said, “The Zimbabwean State seems to be treating the practice of journalism as terrorism.” He went on to criticise the politicisation and criminalisation of journalism in Zimbabwe.
The State, however, said Mhlanga may interfere with witnesses and that the “magnitude of a likely sentence” would induce the accused to abscond.
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Mhlanga was on 24 February 2025 charged and detained on two counts of contravening Section 164 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, which deals with transmitting data messages inciting violence or damage to property.
It is alleged that after interviewing war veteran Blessed Geza on 27 January 2025 and again on 11 February 2025, the journalist transmitted Geza’s messages, which were inciting violence, through YouTube and HSTV, thereby breaking the law.
President Mnangagwa’s government has been hunting for Geza in the last few weeks alleging that he has a raft of charges to answer for. But commentators have labelled it retributive as the war veteran and former Zanu PF central committee member has been calling for Mnangagwa to step down. Among others, Geza and fellow veterans are opposing Zanu PF’s plan to have Mnangagwa rule until 2030 by amending the constitution.
For much of its history since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe was led by the late Robert Mugabe, who was prime minister from 1980 until he was elected president in December 1987, a post he held until November 2017.
Mugabe openly believed in a one-party state and used violence and intimidation to prevent anyone challenging his monopoly on power at the ballot box.
In 2013, Mugabe signed a new constitution into law limiting presidents to two five-year terms. It did not apply retroactively, and Mugabe would have been able to stay in power for a further 10 years were it not for the 2017 coup that replaced him with his then deputy, Mnangagwa.
Mugabe died two years later.
Mnangagwa, a former spy chief, has said publicly that he will leave when his term expires, but the idea of Zimbabwe scrapping term limits was mooted at a Zanu-PF conference last October.
When Zanu PF made it’s intentions known last month, constitutional lawyer Welshman Ncube said that in theory any constitutional change could not apply to the incumbent.
“Mnangagwa will have to subject himself to two referendums, one to scrap the term limits and another to remove the provision that an incumbent cannot benefit from any amendments,” he said.
Another constitutional lawyer, Lovemore Madhuku, said it was not possible for Mnangagwa to stay in power legally beyond 2028 as “no-one that has the power to extend the president’s term of office”.
While Mnangagwa himself recently claimed he would leave in 2028. Journalists invited to the State House asked him what he would do if he was persuaded and he said he would “persuade the persuaders not to persuade” him.
But that has not stopped Zanu PF members from openly chanting Mnangagwa would still be in power in 2030 at different gatherings. At a Bulawayo event to mark the National Youth Day, celebrated on Mugabe’s birthday (21 February), supporters disrupted the national anthem chanting the Mnangagwa would be in office by 2030. The chants have been used to jibe at Mnangagwa’s deputy, Constantino Chiwenga, who is suspected to be heading a faction that is opposing the term extension.
Since 1990, 24 African governments have sought to extend their president’s rule beyond existing constitutional limits, usually by scrapping the two-term ceiling, and with all but four of them successful, according to a 2023 paper in Scientific Research Publishing. MISA/Business Day/Africa News 24
