Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s planned September 15 wedding to Elizabeth Macheka was thrown into doubt Thursday night after lawyers for his ex-lover indicated they were seeking an interdict to stop the nuptials.
Locadia Karimatsenga Tembo – whose relationship with the Prime Minister ended unceremoniously last year – will file an urgent application Friday seeking to stop the wedding, claiming she is still married to the 60-year-old.
“We want the court to interdict this marriage because Tsvangirai is still legally married to my client Locardia,” said her lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, one of Zimbabwe’s top jurists.
“If they get married, it automatically prejudices my client… It means Locardia can no longer be considered his wife,” he added. “Once he has contracted a white wedding, the marriage to Locardia, which at the moment is potentially polygamous, ceases to be potentially polygamous.”
Tsvangirai engaged Elizabeth six months after announcing his customary marriage to Locardia was over after claiming she was being used by his political opponents. The Prime Minister intends to exchange vows with Elizabeth at the exclusive Rain Tree Café in Harare.
Samkange filed a suit at the Harare Magistrates Court Wednesday on behalf of his client seeking spousal support of $15,000 per month from Tsvangirai, whose first wife, Susan, died in a horrific 2009 car crash. She claims the Prime Minister married her under customary law on November 21 last year and never dissolved the union.
In her suit, the high-spending woman wants monthly payment for her upkeep including $3,000 for rent, $4,000 for groceries and $1,700 for beauty expenses, among other expenses. Samkange argues Tsvangirai did not follow procedure in line with “gupuro”, a local Shona custom that requires a man to formally surrender his wife back to his in-laws if he no longer wants her.
“You don’t simply say I’ve parted ways, you follow procedure. He has not gone back to them to say ‘I no longer want your daughter as my wife’,” Samkange argued. “We call it gupuro; you don’t gupura someone by simply saying you are no longer my wife.
“How many people have said that in anger? You know that when angry, some people have told their children that ‘you are no longer my child’, and children as well may say ‘you are no longer my father’. Does that stop one from being a father or a child because you’ve made that statement?,” asked Samkange.
But Tsvangirai spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka dismissed both the spousal support suit and the pending wedding interdict application as desperate politics. “The timing of the so-called civil suit is very curious, coming a week before the prime minister’s wedding,” Tamborinyoka told the Voice of America’s Studio 7.
He said his boss has not yet been informed of his former lover’s intention to preclude his nuptial vows. Rights lawyer Matshobana Ncube commented that Locardia’s case had no merit. Tsvangirai is currently believed to be paying maintenance for a young Bulawayo woman, Loreta Nyathi, with whom he had a brief romance that ended in the conception of a child in 2010.
He initially refused to take responsibility, but had to settle out of court fearing a humiliating legal battle. The Prime Minister’s new love, Elizabeth, is the daughter of senior Zanu PF member Joseph Macheka, who is accused by Tsvangirai’s party supporters of spearheading political violence in Chitungwiza during his reign as mayor.
Commenting in an earlier interview about his controversial marriage, the Prime Minister said he cannot answer for his father-in-law’s actions. He also defended his union, arguing that children cannot be “answerable for their parents’ sins.”
“When you are going out to look for a woman,” he said, “you don’t ask for a political card or you don’t ask for their parents. You look at the woman and say I love this woman.” Tsvangirai said he was sensitive to his supporters’ concerns, but added that he is happy with her.
“We have people from different political affiliations who have married across the political divide and I can tell you the Speaker of Parliament’s wife is the daughter of Zanu PF’s Nyoni (Minister Sithembiso),” he said.
The Prime Minister was referring to House Speaker Lovemore Moyo, the chairman of his MDC-T party, who is married to the Zanu PF official’s daughter.
Writing on facebook Tsvangirai spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka later said;
“Two CIO operations: Operation Blackhawk and Operation Spiderweb financed to the tune of $100 million dollars to cause maximum damage to the person of Morgan Tsvangirai. Today it’s a lawsuit. Tomorrow, they want to file an urgent application to stop the wedding….
“But the people’s resilient dream will not die. The embodiment of that dream will march this country to the promised land….”
