{{Zimbabwe’s sole television station, state-owned and tightly controlled by President Robert Mugabe, is targeting the private life of his arch rival Morgan Tsvangirai with “attack ads” aimed at discrediting him before July 31 elections.}}<\/p>\n
In the adverts, three former lovers reveal how they were dumped by Tsvangirai, 61, before Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party chimes in to tell voters that the prime minister is unfit for office.<\/p>\n
While there are many questions about the tone and taste of the adverts in the socially conservative southern African nation, the message is rubbing off on even die-hard Tsvangirai supporters, who say he has only himself to blame.<\/p>\n
“Five years ago, I would have risked my life for Tsvangirai. I would have assaulted anyone who insulted him,” said Gerald Mlambo in the eastern city of Mutare, a Tsvangirai stronghold.<\/p>\n
Now Mlambo is sufficiently racked by doubts to stay away from a nearby stadium where deafening music and a huge crowd chanting anti-Mugabe slogans are revving up for a campaign rally appearance by his one-time idol.<\/p>\n
Tsvangirai’s sex scandals, along with his failure to deliver on key promises while in government, have steadily eroded the almost messianic support he once enjoyed among many of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people for daring to challenge the three-decade rule of the ruthless and cunning Mugabe.<\/p>\n
Since the death of Tsvangirai’s wife Susan in a car crash in 2009 – the year after he and Mugabe sealed a power sharing deal – the prime minister has fathered a child with a 22-year-old woman and been locked in a court battle with another lover.<\/p>\n
The Harare media also feasted on the claims of a South African woman who said Tsvangirai ditched her by SMS after a two-year affair studded with expensive, exotic holidays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Zimbabwe’s sole television station, state-owned and tightly controlled by President Robert Mugabe, is targeting the private life of his arch rival Morgan Tsvangirai with “attack ads” aimed at discrediting him before July 31 elections.}} In the adverts, three former lovers reveal how they were dumped by Tsvangirai, 61, before Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party chimes in to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-9229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9229"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=9229"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=9229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}