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Harare Bureau
MORGAN Tsvangirai’s wife last night launched an astonishing attack on him, accusing the MDC-T leader of “casting aspersions” on her and “crying victim” over their separation last month.Liz Tsvangirai, 36, who married the former Prime Minister last September, said her split from Tsvangirai, 62, was a result of “sensitive personal issues”.
Sources claimed Tsvangirai, whose first wife and mother of their six children, Susan, died in a car crash in March 2009, had suddenly become impotent which he had tried to cure by visiting the Nigerian prophet TB Joshua and several traditional healers without success.
The MDC-T leader has told friends he believes his late wife is unhappy, and he is claimed to have told Elizabeth that he had to marry Susan’s sister, Leah Mhundwa, to cure his medical problem. He denies the claims.
Elizabeth told our Harare Bureau last night that she had dreamed of being “happily married in poverty and in the midst of plenty”, but had become unhappy.
She now lives at a house in the Philadelphia section of the plush Borrowdale suburb after moving out of their stately Highlands home renovated at a cost of US$1.5 million when Tsvangirai was Prime Minister.
She said: “A lot has been said and written about how I am to blame in the current situation between myself and Mr Tsvangirai.
“It’s not my intention kufukura hapwa, kubvisa matenga akafukidza dzimba or awaken sleeping dogs. Let it be known that it’s every woman’s dream to be happily married in poverty and even in the midst of plenty.
“He knows the genesis of the problem, what steps he has been trying to take, in vain, to address the situation including visits to TB Joshua and others.”
Elizabeth, the daughter of Zanu-PF official Cde Joseph Macheka, also denied that she had married Tsvangirai in the hope that he would become President, and she the First Lady.
Reports shortly after Tsvangirai’s crushing July 31 election defeat to President Mugabe said she had left home with friends and partied in Johannesburg for weeks, leaving Tsvangirai to deal with the defeat alone.
She said: “The paralysis between us has nothing to do with the outcome of the July 31, 2013 elections, the MDC-T, or any other political entity, foreign hand or material worth.
“The matter is both personal and circumstantial and only him and not even relatives, friends or party comrades can solve.”
She said Tsvangirai must not play the victim in the deterioration of their relationship.
“Crying the victim or casting aspersions on anyone including myself is not only a self-serving sympathy-seeking gimmick but an intellectually, factually, and morally dishonest stance to take as close friends from both sides of the families and relatives know,” she blasted.
Tsvangirai has told friends “she walked out” of their home, but Elizabeth is said to be briefing her family that he had asked her to leave after she objected to his plan to marry Susan’s sister.
A devout Catholic, Elizabeth is also said to object to Tsvangirai’s visits to the controversial Nigerian preacher TB Joshua and traditional muti men.
Compounding their troubles have been mutual infidelity accusations, and lately claims that Tsvangirai’s young brother and close aides had spied on Elizabeth on behalf of the MDC-T leader.
Our Harare Bureau reports that the “spies” were paid up to US$6,000 each, and to justify the money some lied to the former Prime Minister that Elizabeth was a Zanu-PF spy while also feeding him untested rumours about her infidelity.
A source said: “He would pay his party security aides to spy and track on Elizabeth, paying them as much as US$6,000. The party spies would also cook up stories. When Elizabeth discovered this, she confronted Tsvangirai who did not deny it.”
Last night, Tsvangirai said although Mhundwa was “given” to him by her family as part of a Shona cultural practice (chimutsa mapfihwa) following his wife’s death, he never intended to formally marry her.
Sources maintain Tsvangirai often visited Mhundwa behind Elizabeth’s back, further destabilising their marriage when the alleged trysts became known.
The MDC-T leader said he still held out hopes that he would be re-united with his wife.
“We will sit down and discuss them as two mature adults,” he said.
On New Year’s Eve, as news broke of their separation, he also insisted: “As far as I’m concerned, I’m still married to my wife and there is no reason to talk about separation or divorce.”
The MDC-T leader was humiliated, though, during the interview, after a driver he sent to fetch Elizabeth returned without her. Tsvangirai also called her in the presence of a newscrew, but she would not take his calls.
Online Reporter