HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s justice minister on Tuesday introduced a constitutional amendment bill in Parliament that would extend the tenure of the country’s 83-year-old president and shift presidential elections from a direct popular vote to selection by lawmakers.
The proposal would defer elections due in 2028 by two years and extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term to 2030. It would also lengthen the terms of the president, MPs, councilors and mayors from five to seven years.
The move has heightened political tensions in a country where critics of the government have often been detained or harassed.
Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi last week said he aims to complete the legislative process and have the measure passed by Parliament by the end of June, after which Mnangagwa can sign it into law.
Mnangagwa has been in power since 2017 following the popular military-backed ouster of his mentor and longtime ruler, Robert Mugabe, who died in 2019.
The ruling ZANU-PF party holds a majority in Parliament, and also enjoys warm relations with a faction of the splintered opposition.
Critics argue that extending presidential terms requires a referendum. Supporters counter that Parliament can approve the changes because the two-term limit would remain in place, even if each term would now be longer. Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court has yet to rule on several legal challenges to the proposal.
FILE - Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, center, stands next to his chief election agent and Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, left, outside the nomination court in Harare, Zimbabwe, June 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported Tuesday, as tensions flared in Israel's separate but related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The halt in communication was likely meant to increase pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it. Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.
The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, come as the conflicts in Iran and Lebanon have increasingly become conjoined. Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon, where Hezbollah remains one of Iran's chief allies in its self-described “axis of resistance” against Israel.
A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.
Israel and the U.S. maintain the fighting in Lebanon is separate from the Iran war talks.
Meanwhile, year-on-year inflation in Iran reached a level in May unseen since World War II, underlining the economic pain average Iranians are facing. While the U.S. is eager to ease the Islamic Republic's grip on the strait — through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed in peacetime — Iran faces economic challenges as its oil-backed economy remains under a U.S. naval blockade.
Economic pressure touched off nationwide protests in Iran in 2017 into 2018, when rising food prices sparked demonstrations that killed over 20 people and saw hundreds arrested. The next year, an increase in government-subsidized gasoline prices caused protests that saw over 300 people reportedly killed.
Then came the protests over the collapsing value of Iran's currency, the rial, at the start of this year. They were the most intense demonstrations to shake the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution and the chaotic years that followed. Iran's theocracy met January's protests with a crackdown on demonstrators in January that killed over 7,000 people, according to activists' estimates.
Now, even as hard-liners hold gun-handling workshops and organize marriages under the shadow of a ballistic missile to bolster spirits, experts note there could be new demonstrations if people find themselves priced out of feeding their families.
“I have no doubt that if Trump leaves (Iran without a formal peace deal) ... most probably, we will see something like January by the end of summer because of the economic and social situations," analyst Mohsen Jalilvand said in a video published by Iran's Fararu news website.
Iran's Central Bank said the consumer price index, which measures a basket of goods and services, reached 77.2% in May compared with the year before. The rate is 8.5% higher than in April, the bank added. Inflation in daily and general needs — like medicine, taxi fares, tobacco and communication fees — rose 113.8% from the year before.
A private economic think tank in Iran, the Bamdad Institute of Economic Studies, described the current figures as “an unprecedented rate since World War II.” Iran’s Central Bank did not acknowledge the significance of the figures.
The previous record came in 1942. During the war, the British and Soviets invaded Iran and took over its railway, disrupting food supplies. The lack of food, worsened by a poor harvest, sparked hyperinflation and a famine. Hunger and a typhus outbreak killed many.
Airstrikes this year have greatly damaged Iran's businesses and its oil industry, Meanwhile, the U.S. blockade has been targeting Iranian crude oil shipments trying to reach the international market, a key source of hard revenue. Tax revenues have been depressed by businesses struggling even after the fighting paused.
The rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 in 2015, now trades at over 1.7 million to $1.
“We will definitely have higher prices," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in May. "We are fighting, and we must accept this hardship.”
Tehran-based economist Saeed Leilaz, speaking to the AP, warned that annual inflation in Iran could reach 80%.
"Iran’s society cannot tolerate above 25%” annual inflation, he said.
Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran. Magdy reported from Cairo.
People walk at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pedestrians and vehicles cross an intersection around Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Men sit at the gate of a mosque at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People carry packages at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
