PM Tsvangirai Issues Statement On ‘Marriage’, Dumps Fiance

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai issued a statement today (30/11/11) on the ‘marriage’ to Locadia Karimatsenga.

This was a long and winding statement which included a lot of accusations being made regarded attempts at political assassination. In short he is telling the nations that he is dumping his girlfriend, who by the way is carrying his twins.

In it, PM Tsvangirai does not deny that there were processes that had begun towards formalising the marriage saying:

I was well-meaning and had good intentions to rebuild my family and start a new lease of life following the tragic passing on of my wife on March 6, 2009.

Having said that he added that the public scrutiny had caused him to reconsider his position, the paranoia having kicked in. He used words such has ‘hijacked’, and insinuated that there were dark political hands at play. He also said that the whole thing had been choreographed and that he did not feel that the relationship could work.

So what is he saying? He is in essence saying that, just because he was up to scrutiny that is a reason to bail out of a relationship.

My question though, is why did he lie in the first place? And the parting shot where he said, “When the time comes, and when the right person fit to be a reliable partner and mother of my children is found, I will advise the nation accordingly”, does it mean that she was not pregnant after all? If this is true, why did he lie about it? The fact that he attempted to do the right thing doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that he denied it in the first place.

The statement does him no favours and leaves more questions than it answers. In essence he has chosen a national platform to dump his girlfriend and blame it on rumours, playing victim while at it. The least you can do in such as a situation is to man up.

We already said it was a public relations disaster but you don’t fix a problem by creating a new one.

It is hard place to be in public office and one needs the legendary thick skin. But at the same time you need to make sure that you spin it your way. We are left with too much to speculate on.

In essence I do feel a little sorry for him. But when you do take the job that is what you expect. The story will go away at some point but this statement does nothing to mend the reputation of my Prime Minister.

However we can’t be too surprised. The man does flip-flop a lot. Watch him as he says something else soon.