Harare -Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has agreed to pay a former girlfriend about R2 million in an out-of-court settlement after he wed another woman in September.
Locardia Karimatsenga, 40, said Tsvangirai, 60, married her in a customary ceremony last year. She demanded maintenance of R130 000 a month to maintain the lifestyle to which she said she had become accustomed.
Her lawyer, Evason Samkange, said he could not disclose details of the settlement, but confirmed the maintenance case had been withdrawn. Other sources said Tsvangirai had agreed to pay Karimatsenga about R2m.
The settlement shocked Tsvangirai’s aides, who said the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader had no income other than his salary of about R30 000 a month and no assets as he had been a poor trade unionist before he went into politics 13 years ago.
Several top members of the MDC said they were worried that Tsvangirai was compromising himself through his lifestyle, evidence of which included his recent lavish wedding to mother-of-three Elizabeth Macheka, 35.
Macheka is the daughter of a prominent Zanu-PF leader and was a widow. Her first husband, a member of the Zimbabwe National Air Force, died several years ago.
(http://www.theinfostride.com/polopoly_fs/iol-news-nov-2-morgan0-1.1416482!/image/133501253.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_300/133501253.jpg) Tsvangirais former partner, Locardia Karimatsenga, is to be paid about R2 million in an out-of-court settlement.
AP
One MDC official said he expected President Robert Mugabe’s officials would try to take advantage of Tsvangirai's money problems by bringing charges of financial impropriety charges against him before next year’s elections.
He was charged with treason weeks before the 2002 presidential elections in an implausible plot executed by the Central Intelligence Organisation. It took more than two years before he was acquitted.
Senior MDC officials said they were mystified by Tsvangirai’s dropping his guard and behaving “inappropriately”, knowing that Zanu-PF was “watching and waiting” for anything that could be used against him.
“We are also embarrassed,” said another MDC official.
“Of course Zanu-PF will try to find out where he got the money. This is inappropriate behaviour when we look at our supporters’ poverty.”
The official was referring to suggestions that foreign donors must be giving Tsvangirai the money he was spending on women.
It is illegal in Zimbabwe for political parties and politicians to receive foreign funding.
Zanu-PF has long accused the MDC of being funded by Western governments.
It introduced the law against foreign funding just before the 2002 presidential election.
Zanu-PF itself had been supported financially by Western businessmen, including then-Lonrho boss Tiny Rowland, and then-Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed last year.
Zanu-PF senior officials have long been involved in illicit gold and diamond trading, which has funded the party’s activities. any major companies have been forced for decades to contribute to the party.
Tsvangirai’s wife of 31 years, Susan, died in a car crash in 2009, three weeks after the politician had been sworn in as prime minister in the power-sharing government.
A year later Tsvangirai’s love life made headlines after a 23-year-old woman bore his child and he refused to support the baby until she threatened to take him to court
.
Calls to Tsvangirai’s spokesman went unanswered on Thursday.
Independent Foreign Service
IOLSA