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(NEWZIMBABWE) Tsvangirai, Tembo to 'clear the air'

Tsvangirai, Tembo to 'clear the air'
Butt of jokes ... President Robert Mugabe and VP Mujuru join in the fun
25/11/2011 00:00:00
by Veneranda Langa I NewsDay

PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai walked into parliament to raucous scenes and cheering by Zanu PF MPs shouting “son-in-law” as his marriage saga continued to titillate the nation.

Tsvangirai, who skipped the Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesday, was in the House on Thursday for the 2012 National Budget presentation. As soon as he stepped into the House of Assembly to take his seat, Zanu PF MPs seized their moment. “Our son in law has come,” they shouted.

Tsvangirai at first appeared shocked and disoriented, but quickly composed himself and bowed facing the Zanu PF side as if in acknowledgement of the “respect”.

He took his seat amid the hubbub, conferred with Information Technology Minister Nelson Chamisa and was soon laughing his lungs out himself.

But if Tsvangirai’s entrance had been noisily greeted, the House went into meltdown when Goromonzi West legislator Biata Beatrice Nyamupinga walked in. Nyamupinga is sister to Locadia Karimatsenga Tembo, the woman Tsvangirai reportedly paid lobola for on Monday.

Table-thumping and waving their order papers, MPs - including some from the MDC - shouted almost in unison: “Welcome sister-in-law!” For a while, the House was a total din.

An unfazed Nyamupinga proceeded directly towards Tsvangirai and, in typical African culture, partially knelt before him and greeted the Prime Minister amid more cheers, laughter and rapturous applause from legislators in the House.

Tsvangirai’s aides have been batting away suggestions that he married Tembo at a private traditional ceremony in Mazowe on Monday, suggesting in fact that he had simply paid "damages" – an admission that the 39-year-old businesswoman is pregnant with his twins.

His spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka was quoted on SW Radio Africa on Thursday saying the Prime Minister would make a statement within days to clear up the “confusion”.

The statement cannot come any sooner for Tembo’s family, who accuse Tsvangirai of "dragging our name in the mud" by denying that he had paid lobola for their daughter, a wealthy commodity broker who made her fortune supplying goods to Makro and Jaggers wholesalers.

Tembo’s uncle Simon Karimatsenga said: "Everything was done according to tradition and I, as the head of the family, can testify that Tsvangirai indeed paid lobola for my niece.

"I never heard that Tsvangirai was paying the money and the cattle for other things except for lobola."

The Herald newspaper reported on Friday that a delegation from Tembo’s family had met the Prime Minister and aides on Thursday, at the end of which “Tsvangirai promised that his wife and himself will soon clear the air.”

Tsvangirai, whose wife, Susan, died in March 2009 in a car crash, reportedly has another child with a 23-year-old Bulawayo woman.

Loreta Nyathi threatened to sue Tsvangirai for maintenance before aides moved in and provided accommodation for her and her now nine-month-old baby son named Ethan.

Feminist and former Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD) leader Margaret Dongo has laid into Tsvangirai, demanding that he “stops dropping his pants”.

"For a Prime Minister who wants to be a President of this country tomorrow, he cannot just go around dropping his pants everywhere," Dongo blasted.

"As a country, we cannot have a leader who has loose morals like what Tsvangirai is exhibiting... As a feminist, I am very angry about the way he doesn't respect women.”

Labels: MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, PARLIAMENT (ZIMBABWE)

posted by MrK @ 5:33 PM