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ZIMBABWE is a constitutional democracy that elects its leadership by universal adult suffrage every five years. The last harmonised elections were held on July 31, 2013 and it follows that the next general elections should be held before July 31, 2018. Till then, President Mugabe is the only man with the mandate to form a Government by virtue of having been resoundingly endorsed by millions of Zimbabweans on July 31, 2013.We hope the so-called Elders sponsored by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson stand put on notice. Their wisdom, if they have it as they fancy themselves elders, is needed in real trouble spots in Africa and other parts of the world. Zimbabwe does not have a leadership crisis or the purported crisis of legitimacy that the opposition loves to harp about.

Mr Annan, Mrs Graça Machel, Mr Carter et al, you have a duty to show the world that you are real elders to whom age has come with the proverbial wisdom. Your services are needed in the real hotspots created by Western expansionism particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.

Zimbabwe does not need your meddlesome hands.

More so we know that it is not coincidental that you, ‘the Elders’ are talking about a so-called Transitional Authority for Zimbabwe at the same time the opposition here is also harping about a so-called national transitional authority. It is all part of a grand plan to agenda set Zimbabwe ahead of three impending summits; the Tokyo International Conference on Africa’s Development (Ticad) set to convene in Nairobi, Kenya over the weekend; the Sadc Summit scheduled for Mbabane, Swaziland next week and of course the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly set for the UN headquarters in New York next month.

The flurry of anti-Government activity on social media, the violent protests being organised by opposition groups by the week in Harare and the spotlight on Zimbabwe by the South African apartheid and Western media are all part of the grand plan to tar and feather Zimbabwe as a prelude to destabilisation.

These deplorable attempts to undermine a constitutionally elected government must not be tolerated let alone smiled at. The police must round up the perpetrators.

The right to protest is enshrined in Section 59 of the Constitution, but with a caveat that it be exercised peacefully.

“Every person has the right to demonstrate and to present petitions, but these rights must be exercised peacefully,’’ reads Section 59.

What this means is that the right to demonstrate ceases to be a right once it impinges on the rights of others. The deplorable scenes we saw in Harare yesterday where opposition hoodlums looted shops and burnt vehicles are not the protests that the Constitution guarantees.

Those are criminal acts that must be met with the full wrath of the law. The opposition groups claimed they were in the streets to demonstrate against alleged police brutality and to hand over a petition to the Minister of Home Affairs.

A noble intention, but what ended up happening is the obverse as the hoodlums went about looting shops, destroying property and torching vehicles.

We would like to remind these groups that as they make their beds so they must lie on them. They must not cry foul when the law comes knocking, as indeed it must.