HISTORY-BLAST
By Dorrothy Moyo| April is the month when the late MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai began the process of marrying an army commdmander’s widow. In the Shona culture a widow is called a deceased’s wife even after their husband’s death.
It was on the 19th April when Tsvangirai on the Friday night engaged to marry the widow (Elizabeth Macheka) of a senior ranking military officer.
The engagement ceremony was conducted on Friday night at the LaFarrranatta Restaurant along Mutoko Road. His engagement came barely six months after he stopped marriage proceedings for another woman, Lorcadia Karimatsenga Tembo.
Loud romantic music could be heard in the background on Friday night as Tsvangirai’s spokesman, Luke Tamborinyoka told ZimEye.com: “Yes it is correct; I can confirm that the Prime Minister has engaged with his loved one. I am still at the function right now”, he said.
Tsvangirai had been widowed since his wife and mother of his six children, Susan, died in a car crash in March 2009.
Tsvangirai may have disappointed his late wife’s younger sister who was given to be his wife in replacement of his children’s mother, according to African culture, party members said on the Friday night.
Elizabeth owns an upmarket beauty salon in Harare and her first husband, Mabasa Simba Guma, died in a car crash 10 years before. His funeral was published on the front page of the state run and ZANU PF controlles Herald newspaper.
Social networking websites were abuzz with the story as people talked about Macheka was once married to Airforce Wing Commander Mabasa Simba Guma, who had a record of leading the violent mass raiding of white owned farms in Chiredzi between 2000 and 2002. Mabasa Guma was a ruthless farm invader who was promoted to a senior military post as a reward for his farm invasions in the eastern town of Chegutu, something the MDC-T leader Tsvangirai may have paid a blind eye to, an army officer who deputised Guma told ZimEye.com.
ZimEye during that week also revealed that Ms Macheka is daughter to the powerful former ZANU PF mayor for Chitungwiza, Joseph Macheka.
Her name became the subject of public discussions the previous year after Tsvangirai had customarily married another woman, Lorcadia Tembo.
Tsvangirai sent a delegation to Lorcadia Karimatsenga Tembo’s home on November 18 2011 to request for her hand in marriage and pay lobola. But he soon terminated the relationship a few days later, stating: “I sent a delegation to the Karimatsenga family homestead to perform traditional and cultural rites to formalise this relationship.
“I have become a spectator in this relationship and things are happening too fast, on camera and without my knowledge. This has led me to conclude that there is a greater and thicker plot around this issue which has undermined my confidence in this relationship,” he said.
– CONTROVERSY –
Controversy however surrounds Ms Macheka’s conduct as friends of Guma claimed that she was no longer living with her former husband at the time of his death.
“The prime minister should have known and it is public knowledge that Elizabeth Guma was already living away from her husband at the time of his death”, two air force officers told ZimEye. “I don’t know maybe people change over time,” one of the ex-officers who requested not to be named, said.(ZIMBABWE, ZimEye)