Tsvangirai urged to be strong and pray for his marriage

FORMER Bulawayo deputy mayor alderman Amen Mpofu on Wednesday warned against celebrating MDC-T leader and former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's marital woes saying his current predicament could befall any man, the Southern Eye reported on Thursday.

Mpofu urged Tsvangirai to be strong and pray for his marriage saying he encountered similar problems after the death of his wife Eunice in 2003.

Tsvangirai confirmed last week that his wife of one year, Elizabeth Macheka, had moved out of their stately Highlands home in Harare to stay in the Philadelphia section of Borrowdale.

Macheka said she had moved out because Tsvangirai had a "medical problem" that she declined to disclose.

Her revelation set tongues wagging with people taking to social media saying the so-called medical problem could probably be that Tsvangirai had suddenly become impotent.

Mpofu weighed in saying Tsvangirai needed divine intervention as no human mind could provide an answer to the problems he is currently facing.

"We do not have answers to some of these problems," Mpofu said. "The only way to go about it is prayer and the Almighty God will guide him.

"Tsvangirai must not forget that when Stephan was being stoned to death in the Bible, he asked God to forgive those who were stoning him. He must forgive those mocking him on the issue because you never know; these people can also end up losing their partners and find themselves in the same predicament."

Mpofu said his advice to Tsvangirai was from experience because after the death of his wife, he faced serious
problems.

"As somebody who lost his wife in 2003, seven months after being elected a councillor, I can offer Tsvangirai valid advice.

"I was happily married with four children and I did not know that this world could be so strange and difficult until I lost my wife," he said.

Mpofu said it was not easy to get someone to marry after that.

"It took me almost 11 years to get someone to call a wife. I attempted to marry more than four times, but things did not work out.

"One thing I discovered is that many women we see out there are only beautiful when we see them from a distance.

"The moment you get closer to them, you discover that they are different animals.

"You have heard of black spots along our high ways; it is almost the same when one loses a wife.

"I do not know if that has something to do with our departed loved ones," Mpofu said.

He said very few people understood President Robert Mugabe when he at one point told them to leave Tsvangirai's love life alone.

"People did not understand him, but when I looked at it, I noticed that since the president lost his first wife Sally, he might have suffered traumatic experiences and so understood what Tsvangirai was going through following the death of his wife Susan in a car accident in 2009," Mpofu said.

The MDC-T official said it was unfair for people to think that someone who has been responsible and a loving father like Tsvangirai could suddenly turn out to be what people are now calling him.

He said Tsvangirai was not careless as some people were painting him to be, but it was more of politics making people heartless in sensitive matters.

Tsvangirai's love life has lately been dominating the media with some critics branding him a careless leader.

Some commentators have, however, accused Macheka of being greedy and disappointed that Tsvangirai failed to make it to State House after losing the disputed presidential poll on July 31.

Political analysts believe Tsvangirai's opponents would use this latest set-back to force him to stand down as leader of the MDC-T.