MDC-T yesterday rubbished reports claiming that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife, Elizabeth Macheka, had an extra-marital affair as part of efforts by Zanu PF strategists to divert attention from the looming court battle over the controversial July 31 elections.
Report by Njabulo Ncube Deputy Editor
The State-owned Sunday Mail yesterday published e-mails allegedly exchanged between Macheka and a Harare man called Kenny Ngirazi. The paper said Macheka and Ngirazi had a child together from an affair that preceded Tsvangirai’s marriage and claimed the e-mails were proof that the pair had not ended their relationship.
But MDC-T spokesman Douglas Mwonzora said the party was aware that Zanu PF would try to use the State media to divert attention from allegations that President Robert Mugabe and his party used unorthodox means to win the elections. Tsvangirai last Friday filed an application at the Constitutional Court (Concourt) seeking to overtun the results of the elections won by Mugabe with 61% of the vote.
In the court papers, the MDC-T said he had evidence that a shadowy Israeli company — Nikuv — was paid $10 million to rig the elections in Zanu PF’s favour.
“This story is simply a diversion by Zanu PF using the State media, which the party firmly controls, from the raging ongoing saga of the stolen election,” Mwonzora said. “The MDC-T remains firmly behind its leader president Morgan Tsvangirai.”
In the run-up to the elections, Zanu PF ran adverts targeting Tsvangirai’s personal life on the State-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), which were seen as a way of tarnishing the image of Mugabe’s foe. In the adverts, three former lovers revealed how they were dumped by Tsvangirai.
The MDC-T leader, who lost his first wife Susan in a car accident in 2009, two years ago ended a relationship with Harare business woman Lorcadia Karimatsenga Tembo, protesting that security agents were interfering.
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Tembo last year blocked Tsvangirai’s marriage to Macheka after she convinced the courts that the outgoing Prime Minister had married her in a customary union.
Tsvangirai’s poll challenge, which has already delayed Mugabe’s inauguration, is likely to spark fireworks if the dossier that accompanied his Concourt application is anything to go by.
