SW Radio Africa news - The Independent Voice of Zimbabwe
Outspoken MDC99 leader Job Sikhala has become an unlikely ally of MDC-T President Morgan Tsvangirai by insisting he will overcome his current marital crisis. Despite their relations souring in the last few years, Sikhala had no kind words for people who are seemingly celebrating Tsvangirai’s marital difficulties, saying Tuesday such behavior was akin to ‘kicking a man when he is down’. The turbo-charged Sikhala told SW Radio Africa that Tsvangirai, like any other person in Zimbabwe, has a right to his privacy despite numerous intrusions into his life by the state media. “I think some people have lost their moral compass and as civilized citizens there is a time to know when to draw the line. Issues to do with a sensitive issue like an individual’s marital status have absolutely nothing to do with the whole nation where people want to poke their noses in other people’s relationships with their wives or husbands,” Sikhala said. Tsvangirai and his wife, Elizabeth Macheka, have been in the spotlight after they both confirmed reports that they were no longer living together. The MDC-T leader married Elizabeth, the daughter of a senior ZANU PF official and former Chitungwiza mayor, in 2012 amid controversy over his marital status and love life. “We should distinguish Tsvangirai the public figure and Tsvangirai the private person. He is a public figure but also a private citizen in his own right and for people to celebrate his misfortune is really an anathema to our own culture,” he said. He continued: “There are many people who are not as popular as Tsvangirai or Job Sikhala who have very serious scandalous marriage issues at the present moment, but there is nobody who has been shouting about them in newspapers or the social media.” Sikhala urged people to give Tsvangirai space to so he can find time to work on saving his marriage, and threatened to expose those in the MDC-T party who have been celebrating his marriage woes. “One thing that pains me most is people who purport to be close to him but who visit public bars and shout about his misfortune. This really irritated me and I warned one of them that I would expose him if he continued doing that,” he said.