Zimbabwe PM: I have found true love

17 Sep 2012, 9:03 pm   -   Source: AAP
Zimbabwe's PM Morgan Tsvangirai says state media reports about his private life are propaganda. (AAP)

Zimbabwe's PM Morgan Tsvangirai says state media reports about his private life are propaganda. (AAP)

Zimbabwe's prime minister has told his wedding guests that reports by state media saying his private life is irresponsible are propaganda.

Zimbabwe's prime minister has said at his marriage ceremony he had to date several women to find the one he truly loves.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai dismissed as propaganda on Sunday the reports by state media that say he leads an irresponsible private life which makes him unfit to lead the country.

A Zimbabwe magistrate ruled on Friday that Tsvangirai could not go ahead with a formal wedding after a jilted ex-lover filed a suit against him claiming the two were still married under Zimbabwe's tribal laws. The court upheld that Tsvangirai paid a traditional bride price for the woman last year and therefore was married to her.

The magistrate cautioned Tsvangirai that if he signed a legal marriage register with his new wife, he could be prosecuted for bigamy.

Tsvangirai, 60, and Elizabeth Macheka, 35, exchanged vows on Saturday but did not sign the legal marriage register.

Speaking in the local Shona language at the lavish event that continued until the early hours of Sunday, Tsvangirai reassured his supporters and Zimbabweans in general that he had not made errors of judgment in seeing other women since his wife of 31 years, Susan, 50, died in a car accident in 2009.

Several top regional leaders had been invited to the wedding but did not show up, presumably because of the court order that the wedding not go ahead.

Zimbabwe's state media loyal to President Robert Mugabe, who is in a shaky, three-year coalition with Tsvangirai, on Sunday described the ceremonies as a "circus" and Tsvangirai as promiscuous and "sex-crazed".

The state-controlled Sunday Mail said Tsvangirai was a "good-for nothing politician whose mission in politics is to seek power to get sex".

The state Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) on Friday broadcast video footage of what it said was Tsvangirai's traditional marriage to the other woman, Locardia Karimatsenga, 39.

"ZBC, shame on you for your unprofessionalism. You are dividing Zimbabwe and sowing hate," Tsvangirai told his wedding guests.

Tsvangirai said he was being "condemned, harassed and vilified" for falling in love with the woman of his choosing.

"I love this woman because I chose her myself. I will love her till the day I die," he told his supporters during the ceremony.

Tsvangirai said "love has nothing to do with politics", apparently referring to the fact that his new bride's family belongs to Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

"I saw a beautiful woman," he said. "I said she is beautiful for someone like me who has an eye for beautiful women."

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