A MAZOWE chief has summonsed Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai over his abortive ‘marriage’ to Lorcadia Karimatsenga Tembo.
Chief Negomo of Chiweshe tried Wednesday to serve Tsvangirai with the papers at the MDC-T’s Harvest House and also visited his government offices at Charter House in Harare.
In Shona culture, it is considered taboo to marry in November.
Tsvangirai’s spokesman told New Zimbabwe.com that the chief arrived at his offices with a phalanx of journalists in tow.
“The chief arrived at the Prime Minister’s offices with journalists in tow. But the choreographed drama will not change his (Tsvangirai’s) position which he made last week,” Tamborinyoka said.
“Yes, the Prime Minister believes in change but on this (issue) no amount of drama will change his position (even if) the cows were to come home.”
Tsvangirai has been under pressure after it emerged he had made his girlfriend, Locadia Karimatsenga Tembo, pregnant with twins.
He sent emissaries to pay lobola and request marriage at her rural home in Mazowe, but he stunned the country when he announced he was divorcing her 12 days later, stating that he had “serious misgivings as to whether this will be a perfect union”.
Tsvangirai claimed “there is now an underhand and active political hand that is driving the processes and this has resulted in everything regarding this relationship now taking place on camera, with the public media journalists in tow.”
He also appeared to suggest Mugabe loyalists in state intelligence were involved – although this has been trashed by critics who say Tsvangirai went into the relationship fully aware that Karimatsenga’s sister, Biata Beatrice Nyamupinga, is a Zanu PF MP and her husband a diplomat posted by Mugabe to Australia.
A London-based pro-democracy group has since called on the MDC-T leader to “reconsider his position” in the wake of the scandal.
ZimVigil, which has held protests against President Robert Mugabe outside the Zimbabwe embassy in London every Saturday since 2002, said Tsvangirai’s love life was “more than a laughing matter”.
In a statement the group said it shared a respect for Tsvangirai for his “heroic work leading the MDC for the past twelve years”, but added: “It was felt that he should – as the saying goes – reconsider his position. Zanu PF has been paralysed by its inability to renew its leadership. The MDC should not make the same mistake.
“We believe there is no shortage of talent in the MDC and, with elections unlikely in the foreseeable future, there would be time for a new leader to make his mark.”