LONDON — MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai has dismissed as lies media reports claiming he was battling marital turmoil amid speculation that his wife had moved out of their marital home.
“My life with my wife is private,” the former prime minister told NewZimbabwe.com in an interview in London where he addressed a conference at Oxford University on resource exploitation in Africa and democracy.
“But the fact of the matter is that my marriage is stable. Whatever the State media wants to promote is actually trying to undermine and dent my own character and it is all done with vindictiveness and malice,” he said.
Media reports have claimed Tsvangirai found himself having to deal with the added headache of trouble at home as he battles to keep his party together following its defeat in the July 31 elections which he dismisses as fraudulent.
It has been claimed that his wife, Elizabeth, had left their home in Harare’s upmarket Highlands area after rekindling romances with former lovers.
But the MDC-T leader said the allegations were part of a deliberate campaign to humiliate him.
“All that is intended to humiliate me, undermine me and promote a certain image which does not exist,” he said.
Asked how his wife was coping with the allegations, Tsvangirai said: “Unfortunately she is somebody who has been thrown at the deep end.
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“She has never experienced this. Politics and public life have never been part of her life and naturally you’d feel for her.
“She has never been a public person unlike some of us who have developed thick skins over the years — you feel sorry for somebody who has been thrown at the wolves as it were.”
Tsvangirai insisted that his wish to meet President Robert Mugabe regarding the Highlands residency suggested he now recognised the Zanu PF leader’s re-election.
“Mugabe is a reality. He is the president even if it’s through subterfuge,” the MDC-T leader said.
“Mugabe has been sworn-in as president and there is nothing wrong with engaging him not just about my own personal issues. We still have outstanding issues regarding where the nation is going.”
