Tsvangirai dumps mistress

Former prime minister  Morgan Tsvangirai's  love life has once again come back to haunt him following revelations he abandoned his mistress in a Harare hotel, it emerged Thursday.

Loretta Nyathi, the Bulawayo-based mother of Tsvangirai's four-year-old son described the opposition  MDC-T strongman as a "cruel and morally bankrupt man."

Nyathi poured her heart out to The Zimbabwe Mail about her ordeal.

"I talked to him (Tsvangirai) a week before he was hospitalised and we agreed that I come to Harare to iron out our issues like normal people. He did not keep his word, so I decided to come here and confront him," said Nyathi.

On arrival in the capital Nyathi says she headed for Tsvangirai's contentious plush government house in the leafy upmarket suburb of Highlands.

"As I arrived at the gate he coincidentally also arrived and he immediately ordered his aides to book me into a local hotel. Later on Tuesday he came to see me and we talked and he agreed that he would honour his obligations the following day (Wednesday)," a tearful Nyathi said.

According to Nyathi that was the last she saw of  the MDC-T leader.

"Now I cannot get hold of him. His mobile phone  is unreachable and his aides claim he is in Botswana and they cannot help me".

Asked which aide she had talked to Nyathi claimed to have spoken to Tsvangirai's chief secretary in the inclusive government, Ian Makone. Contacted for comment Makone said: "My son you know Tsvangirai's spokesperson, talk to him."

Earlier in the day The Zimbabwe Mail spoke to Tamborinyoka to ascertain Tsvangirai's whereabouts and he categorically stated that his boss was in the country.

"He is around and has not gone anywhere," said Tamborinyoka at the time.

He was later not picking up his mobile phone. However, party information chief Douglas Mwonzora claimed Tsvangirai was out of the country.

"I have no authority to comment on the president's personal matters but as for his whereabouts I can confirm that he is out of the country and that we are expecting him soon," said Mwonzora.

According to Nyathi, Tsvangirai has not paid maintenance for his four-year-old son since last year's harmonised elections.

"He was paying $2 200 a month and has not done so since the end of August last year (2013), now he has just vanished into thin air and left me here. I feel used, abused and abandoned. He is a cruel man with no moral standing, I am actually shocked that he has over the years taken to podiums to proclaim that he wants to serve the people of Zimbabwe when he cannot take care of one child," she said.

Nyathi sued for maintenance and the former prime minister agreed to an out-of court settlement.

She said Tsvangirai on Tuesday night had promised to make "all monies needed by us available and pay-off all outstanding arrears".

"Now I am being sent from pillar to post, with his aides saying he is out of the country. I went to his office and they said they cannot do anything to help me. I feel angry that he could pay over $300 000 to some people but does not care to do anything for his son. He refused to take a birth certificate for him and I had to be forced to register him in my name.

"I have a child with this man and I have kept myself away from the newspapers. That should tell you what kind of person I am. I am being forced into this interview by the situation but I really did not want to. Where I come from its taboo (to be doing this) but I do not have a choice," said Nyathi whose face projected a tormented soul.

Tsvangirai's love life following the death in a freak accident of his wife Susan in 2009 reads like a soap opera, from the scandalous affair with Locardia Karimatsenga - Tembo who he ended up paying a staggering $300 000 as a once off payment, to South African citizen Nosipho Shilubane and Elizabeth Macheka, his current wife.

Shilubane is allegedly penning a book on her escapades with the MDC-T president.