Link of politics and ‘private life’

woman – and has had a parade of other women linked to his love life – says strenuously his personal life has nothing to do with the politics of the land that has catapulted him into the top office that he occupies.
Of course, the “personal life” of a public figure, like himself and the politics that he plies on his own behalf and on behalf of the Zimbabwean nation are not normatively compatible with each other, hence the furore over his controversial marriage to Locadia Karimatsenga Tembo. What appears to be the striking issue is that Locadia, reported recently to be still at Mr Tsvangirai’s village in Buhera, comes from a family strongly linked to Zanu-PF and the Prime Minister and his MDC camp now seem to be of the opinion that Locadia is a “honey-trap” as though Zanu-PF propositioned her on Mr Tsvangirai’s behalf.
Of course, nothing can be further from the truth and any instance on that notion by anyone should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves as a futile attempt at escapism. Another woman, in Bulawayo and yet a third in Harare have also been mentioned as being among the Prime Minister’s lovers. Were Mr Tsvangirai an ordinary man in the streets trying to flaunt his machismo to other men of his social station with a train of girlfriends, few people would bat an eye at him, least of all have his escapades as a headline in their own conversations.
However, when such a high-profile politician, becomes involved with more than one woman in his life the man automatically courts the description of “womaniser” or “gallivantor” and both these appellations impact negatively on the person’s image, at worst ruining his career for good. The reason for such a situation is an academic one since a public figure ceases to have a “personal life” or “private life” as such but must “live” a “public” life on behalf of those who elevated the person to his leadership position.
Political life the world over is replete with examples of VIPs who tried to mix their political and personal lives like fish and chips but came to grief as a result.
One example that comes immediately to mind concerns Herman Cain, an American seeking nomination by his Republican party as a presidential candidate against incumbent Barack Obama in next year’s election. Cain crashed out even before he was nominated, tripped over illicit love affairs with two women who claimed they had a relationship with him.
It is now all over for Cain, his dream of tenure in the White House, probably blown for good by his extra-marital affairs, which he had initially denied but all to no avail. Before that were the smouldering ashes of the plum job for Frenchman Dominique Strauss Kahn as managing director of the International Monetary Fund who was accused of raping a girl in a New York City hotel.
Had the complainant been ravished, say, by an ordinary man, the matter would probably have ended there with an apology or some material taken to assuage her anger. That the rape victim scaled an Everest for her complaint to be heard and the attacker punished demonstrates once again that the “personal” or “private” life of a person in public office is probably to be found only in the loo.
But perhaps the most instructive example of the separation of public political life from personal or private life is to be found in the so-called “Profumo scandal” in Britain in the early sixties. John Profumo, Secretary of State for War in Prime Minister Harold McMillan had an affair with Christine Keeler, a call girl linked to a Russian spy.
The liaison caused a row in British politics between 1963 and 1964 as it was believed that Christine acted as a Russian honey-trap to get secrets from the British government for the Russian spy working with the call girl. Profumo lost his job and would die in 2009 as a virtual political nonentity in Britain while his involvement with Christine caused McMillan’s own fall – his government damaged by the scandal, paving the way for the Labour Party’s Harold Wilson to become Britain’s next Prime Minister after elections in 1964.
For Zimbabwe’s born-frees, it was under Harold Wilson that the Rhodesian Front government or Prime Minister Ian Smith declared unilateral independence from Britain in 1965 and that Wilson refused to send white soldiers to fight fellow white Rhodesian soldiers to end the rebellion against the British Crown until the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, under mounting pressure from the liberation forces of Zanu-PF and PF-Zapu convened the Lancaster House Talks in 1979, which paved the way for Zimbabwe’s independence the following year.
There are no doubts other examples of playboy political leaders who landed themselves in trouble with their lustful lives thereby also forfeiting the support of the public who voted them into power. Such leaders obviously became not only a liability to the electorate, their presence in communities that they visited caused consternation among elders who stopped short of ordering roll-calls of their wives and daughters to try to ascertain their “safety” once the discredited leaders were gone.
So you (yes, you) see any talk of an important personage enjoying the best of both worlds – public political life and personal or private life – is nothing but a fallacy as it behooves on all leaders without exception to live and “lead by example.”

l Stephen Mpofu is a former editor of The Chronicle.