Tsvangirai's open-zip policy, what is his HIV status?

If Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has one fatal character weakness which defines his persona and leadership or lack thereof, it is that just like he typically approaches national issues with an open mouth, he now routinely approaches women anywhere and everywhere at places such as political rallies, airports and offices with an open zip and a shut mind.

While this is bad enough, what is worse is that Tsvangirai's open-mouth and open-zip approaches to serious issues and women respectively are morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest in that in either case he never takes responsibility for anything he says or does but he always finds somebody else to blame such as his advisors, so-called State media, imaginary CIO agents and Zanu-PF functionaries.

As such, Tsvangirai invariably leaves the improbable impression that when he says something and if that something goes wrong ' as he did recently in support of gays contrary to his earlier public view on the same issue ' it would be because somebody else would have opened his mouth and put words into that mouth to get him to say what he would otherwise have not said.

When the public media exposed Tsvangirai's gay gaffe recently, he falsely charged that words were being put into his mouth when the indubitable fact is that his pro-gay BBC interview was there as it still is to speak for itself in sharp contrast to his earlier anti-gay remarks made in Chitungwiza at a meeting he addressed with President Mugabe and whose verbatim record is available on video for all to verify.

In the same vein, when Tsvangirai promiscuously opens his zip in the privacy of his bedroom or space he invariably comes out claiming foul play and wondering who opened his zip to get him to sleep with any of the many women alleged to be in his life with his dirty finger pointed at some of his advisors, media, CIO agents and Zanu-PF members.

For example, after a very public affair with Locadia Tembo whose Zanu-PF connections were screaming loud from the very first time the two met, it is very foolish and an unacceptable insult to Zimbabweans for

Morgan Tsvangirai to turn around with an open zip to ridiculously claim that his relationship with Locadia is allegedly a sting operation by some of his advisors or alleged CIO agents or Zanu-PF functionaries when it is clearly Tsvangirai who in this case stung Locadia, allegedly leaving her pregnant with twins.

How can a man sleep with a woman and say that it was a sting? Just how?

It is beyond all rationality to imagine why and how Tsvangirai imagines that he is going to get away with blaming others for his own sting in the Locadia case.

Whether Tsvangirai marries or will marry or will not marry Locadia is utterly irrelevant as these possibilities are constructed arrangements that are neither here nor there. The only relevant reality is that even by his own admission Tsvangirai stung Locadia and that happened in a private moment whose consequences are now unavoidably public and seriously so.

If Tsvangirai wants Zimbabweans to take him seriously as a potential head of state and government and commander-in-chief of the defence forces, then he must take full responsibility for stinging Locadia without playing media or political games by pretending that he does not know who opened his own zip for the sting.

Against this backdrop, it has become clear that while most Zimbabweans believe that Tsvangirai is indeed entitled to the privacy of his bedroom like everyone else, they nevertheless also believe that the Prime Minister's bedroom behaviour is of public interest especially when it is morally depraved, reckless and betrays shockingly poor judgment by a self-important politician who has thus far relied on pure luck and the fate of circumstances to seek the highest office of the land.

It is for this reason that the salacious details of the Prime Minister's now very public and very messy bedroom matters have given rise to three damning conclusions about his irreparably poor standing as an aspiring national leader who has proven to be incapable of leading by good example and the three conclusions are that:

Morgan Tsvangirai is a promiscuous politician who cannot be trusted by voters in particular and women in general;

Tsvangirai's open-zip approach to the women he meets anywhere and everywhere including at places such as political rallies, offices, supermarkets and airports poses a clear and present danger to Zimbabwe's otherwise successful and internationally respected fight against HIV and Aids to the detriment of Government policy; and

Tsvangirai lacks the moral authority necessary for a leader with his kind of ambition and aspirations to be president of this country.

Let us examine each of these three inevitable conclusions much more closely one by one to appreciate the ramifications at stake.

In the first place, everybody now knows that Tsvangirai is a promiscuous politician who says anything depending on the advice of the person who speaks to him last. And this is consistent with his stance of approaching national issues with an open mouth and of dealing with women with an open zip.

Promiscuity is very dangerous, be it political or sexual. A promiscuous politician or promiscuous sexual partner cannot be trusted. And a would-be leader who, like Morgan Tsvangirai, is both politically and sexually promiscuous is double trouble. Yet trust is the essence and thus the bedrock not only of political leadership but also of sexual relations including marriage.

The bottom line on both counts is that there's now monumental evidence which proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Tsvangirai cannot be trusted. You can trust him at your own peril. A voter who trusts a politician who approaches national issues with an open mouth is as doomed as a woman who trusts a man who approaches women with an open zip.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand this staggering moral reflection whose ramifications are as self-evident as day and night.

In the circumstances, the general message to Zimbabweans is very clear: if you are a voter, please do not trust a politician who approaches issues that are important to you with an open mouth; and by the same token if you are a woman please do not trust a man who comes to you with an open zip.

The particular message is also very clear: Tsvangirai is promiscuously seeking the votes of Zimbabweans to be president of Zimbabwe by approaching all national issues with an open mouth while he is promiscuously seeking women by approaching them with an open zip for his sexual gratification without caring about moral consequences including the scourge of HIV.

There's a more fundamental and quite serious issue arising from the foregoing. Tsvangirai's open-zip approach to the women he meets anywhere and everywhere including at places such as his now regular political rallies organised by Ian Makone using funds from the Prime Minister's office and at airports and so forth poses a clear and present danger to Zimbabwe's otherwise successful and internationally acclaimed fight against HIV and Aids.

What has come out beyond dispute from Morgan Tsvangirai's wayward sexual escapades is that the Prime Minister's open zip policy towards women apparently does not believe in having protected sex and this is why many, if not all of the many women in his chequered sexual life are claiming to be pregnant left, right and centre.

And this begs the question: does Tsvangirai know that there's something called a condom?  Why does he not condomise?

It is really a shame that the very same Prime Minister who has designated for appointment by President Mugabe a Minister of Health and Child Welfare, the clueless Dr Henry Madzorera, is the one who is at the forefront of sexual promiscuity with the result of impregnating an untold number of cheated and arguably abused women some as young as the 23 years old Miss Nyathi in Bulawayo who refused to be forced into an illegal abortion by the Prime Minister's office run by Ian Makone who has declared on record his government office to be "very, very, very partisan".

And let us be frank here.
The fact that it is beyond any argument that Tsvangirai is having unprotected sex with women out there, many who, like Bulawayo's Miss Nyathi, are clearly young, naïve, impressionable and vulnerable, means that he has either exposed himself to HIV or has exposed his women victims to the virus in a country where exposure to HIV is a very risky business that in some instances amounts to a death sentence.

Therefore, and this is very serious, Tsvangirai's HIV status is now a matter not just of his privacy to which he is entitled but is also a matter of public interest and public concern.

What is Tsvangirai's HIV status? Is he negative or positive?

There's no way under the sun that this very serious question can be put to rest or even wished away without Tsvangirai publicly taking an HIV test with the results being made public if he wants the public to trust him and respect him given the fiasco of his confirmed sexual promiscuity.

And let's be clear about this, an HIV test is of course as private as bedroom affairs themselves. Tsvangirai is indeed entitled to that privacy.

There would be no basis whatsoever for calling on him to come clean on his HIV status if he had not only kept his affairs private but if also the public record showed that he condomises, which we now all know he does not do.

Nobody is going to force Tsvangirai to take a public HIV test with public results against the law which clearly protects his rights in this matter but if he does not take it nobody will trust him and trust is everything in politics.

If Tsvangirai does not want to take an HIV test and to have the results thereof published in light of his scandalous sexual escapades, then he must quit as both Prime Minister and leader of his MDC.

So Morgan Tsvangirai must go for an HIV test today and publish the result or quit politics pronto. There's no "if this" or "but this", he must just do it or quit. Full stop.

This is because it should be clear even to those who refuse to think that Tsvangirai has abused both his office as president of his embattled MDC party in which sexual orgies are the order of the day and his role as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe whose office has been turned into a "very, very, very partisan" office by Ian Makone to trap women for bedding purposes.

Zimbabweans must stand up against this moral depravity and put a stop to Tsvangirai's sexual predatory shenanigans without fear or favour.

And again the challenge to Morgan Tsvangirai is very clear: go for an HIV test without further ado and have the results published or resign today.

If you don't do it, the people will make you do it come rain or shine failure of which you will be history sooner than you can spell it.

Then there's the third and final fact that Tsvangirai spectacularly lacks the moral authority necessary for a leader with his kind of ambition and aspirations to be president of this country.

Surely, the source of any moral authority for any political leader such as a Prime Minister of any country is that leader's behaviour or conduct against his or her espoused values, norms and ideology. Moral authority is the ability to influence significant subpopulations of the public to ethically or morally act in one way or the other, including during but not limited to elections.

An aspiring politician whose personal life is sexually scandalous or sexually frivolous cannot expect to have moral authority on any subpopulation of a society such as ours.

Yet moral authority is the one tool that political leaders must have and use with confidence.  Any political leader who does not have moral authority in society does not deserve to be seen or respected as a leader.

Tsvangirai has shown that his morality is in between his legs and that he has a twin policy of approaching national issues with an open mouth and dealing with women with an open zip.

The time for Tsvangirai to get real has come.  He must get tested for HIV at a New Start Centre nearest to him or at his Harvest House office and let the nation know the result of his HIV status or forget everything.