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Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) youth assembly has reportedly vowed to thwart the alleged plan by the country's war veterans to have a constitutional amendment to revise the minimum age of any aspiring president to 52.
According to Daily News, the influential Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association has proposed that parliament raise the minimum age for presidential aspirants from 40-years to 52 ahead of the ruling Zanu-PF conference next week.
The motion is widely seen as targeted at the MDC presidential candidate in the just ended election in which Nelson Chamisa, 40, narrowly lost against President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The planned constitutional amendment would likely prevent Chamisa from contesting for power in the country’s next election in 2023.
War veteran secretary Victor Matemadanda said the 1970s freedom fighters are calling on the ruling Zanu-PF party, which hold a two-thirds majority in parliament, to push for the constitutional amendment.
But, according to New Zimbabwe, the MDC youth have vowed to resist such a move.
MDC youth leader, Takunda Madzana warned the former liberation fighters that the country does not belong to them.
Madzana also said the MDC youth would not sit around and watch the country being turned into an "old age home".
“So they (war veterans) should be warned and they should know that we will do anything as the youths for this country and Matabeleland to make sure that we defend our country. We cannot watch whilst some people are trying to turn this country into a people’s old age home,” Madzana was quoted as saying.
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