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Leave Tsvangirai alone — Mugabe

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In an apparent departure from his usual vitriol against his archrival in the dysfunctional inclusive government, President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday shocked all and sundry when he urged the media to back off and stop talking about the Premier’s love affairs. The country’s strongman — who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 — said […]

In an apparent departure from his usual vitriol against his archrival in the dysfunctional inclusive government, President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday shocked all and sundry when he urged the media to back off and stop talking about the Premier’s love affairs.

The country’s strongman — who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 — said people were entitled to choose their brides or grooms.

Speaking at the official launch of the Schweppes management and employee share ownership scheme at the Schweppes plant on Wednesday, President Mugabe said Tsvangirai’s “love life” and choices did not justify the “hullaballoo” in the media, adding the PM was free to choose his bride.

“We want peace, we want people to be happy, we don’t want them to live in fear and we want them to be their own masters, mistresses, to marry people they choose.

“He who wants many wives, one or two, it’s his own choice,” President Mugabe said.

“If one chooses his wife, why should people mind about that? It’s his own choice.

“Now newspapers write about that (the PM’s ‘marriage’) and are on his case, why?” he queried.

“We don’t have that policy (one-man/one-wife) because we know our elders had many wives.

“My father had two, my maternal grandfather had one, my grandfather Karigamombe Matibiri had five.

“When he came to church, it was not possible to throw away the other wives and he was told to choose one and he chose the youngest and wedded her.

“He was told that the others would continue to stay with him, but not as his wives.

“Imagine people who were your wives and you stay with them without doing anything to them, but just looking at them,” he said.

President Mugabe then called for political tolerance, reiterating his call for peaceful co-existence among politicians and their supporters.

“It’s not Mugabe, (MDC leader Welshman) Ncube and Tsvangirai’s word alone, it’s our word together.

“We want peace, we want people to be happy, we don’t want them to live in fear.

“Why beat each other up saying this is my territory, I am Zanu PF, I am MDC-T, MDC-N, and this one belonging to Simba (Makoni), what’s the name of the party by the way?” he asked referring to Makoni’s Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn.

“Why stone and beat up people to support you? Why bring machetes, axes and knobkerries to force people to support you?

“We want to talk to people to get our message. People need dialogue, not machetes or knives,” said Mugabe.

Tsvangirai has been attacked in the media over his alleged “marriage” to a wealthy Harare commodity broker, Lorcadia Karimatsenga Tembo.

But the Premier has maintained he never married her, but merely paid damages.

The State media followed Tsvangirai’s alleged wife to his rural home at the weekend, prompting the MDC-T and the PM’s close associates to speculate that the Central Intelligence Organisation was behind the apparent fiasco.