(Last Updated on February 24, 2016 by Editor)
ZIMBABWE – Pictures of opposition MDC-T leader Mr MorganTsvangirai cavorting with a group of women have caused a social media frenzy with party functionaries tripping over each other to explain the incident.
In the pictures, Mr Tsvangirai, clad in a red casual shirt with an MDC-T logo is seen with five unidentified women in a garden park with him seated wrapping his left arm around a woman in a red dress while a second woman appears to reach to talk to him.
In another, he is seen still sitting with the woman in red, who is partly obscured, while two skimpily dressed women are in the foreground appearing to dance and pose for the picture.
Mr Tsvangirai is laughing while apparently watching the posterior of one of the women while the others are cheering.
The former prime minister, who lost his wife in a tragic car accident in 2009, is married to Elizabeth Macheka.
Last night, his spokesman, Mr Luke Tamborinyoka, did not answer his mobile phone nor did he return the calls to The Herald.
MDC-T spokesman Mr Obert Gutu dismissed the pictures and tried to bat away suggestions of a scandal.
“Those pictures were obviously photoshopped. They are completely fake and puerile. This is Zanu-PF propaganda in its most desperate mode,” he said.
“Instead of focusing on real issues of resuscitating the collapsed economy as well as addressing the impending drought that will affect about 6 million Zimbabweans, the Zanu-PF regime is busy pursuing this childish and spurious propaganda campaign against Morgan Tsvangirai.
“No right-thinking person will be swayed by this desperate and frivolous campaign to malign and denigrate Morgan Tsvangirai’s public image.”
The Herald could not independently verify the authenticity of the pictures which one MDC supporter, Promise Mkwananzi – in comments on Twitter – said were taken at Village Lodge in Gweru.
The latest pictures are reminiscent of pictures that were released by a South African woman, Ms Nosipho Regina Shilubane, of them holidaying in the Seychelles aboard a ship named, “Legend of the Seas”.
The woman claimed that Mr Tsvangirai had promised to marry her.
Mr Tsvangirai has been linked to different women details of which have been damaging to his struggling political career.
The former premier was linked with several women among them Locardia Karimatsenga whom he customarily married in November 2012 while details of a relationship with a Bulawayo woman, Loreta Nyathi, with whom he sired a son, also emerged.
He has also been involved with Arikana Chihombori and Aquilina Pamberi among other women.