Zimbabwe: The hypocrite speaks.

New Times ( Rwanda ) reports

Mugabe’s warning to government officials on keeping mistresses

                                                                                       Robert Mugabe

HARARE. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has warned local officials to stay away from keeping mistresses, terming it a practice that is “not good to nation building.”

Well I guess that is debatable. Presumably if the mistresses are participating in procreation then one might argue it is actually quite a useful contribution to nation building. 

Mugabe told the third Zimbabwe Local Government Association biennial conference that he receives continuous reports of various national leaders lavishing their mistresses with expensive gifts such as vehicles and houses, the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper reported.

If I was a local government official I think that that might sort of piss me off a little. National leaders get to lavish their mistresses with " expensive gifts such as vehicles and houses " while local officials are warned not to have mistresses.

“When you cheat, people will not trust you, especially when the position you hold is an economic one. They will think you are abusing their money,” he said. The 89-year-old Zimbabwean leader said the trend of men keeping mistresses, commonly known as “small houses,” is to blame for the country’s rising divorce rate. Children will also suffer from the men’s loss of moral, he added.

Yes what else can I say ? The master hypocrite has spoken. 

Harare President Robert Mugabe has for the first time confessed that he is addicted to mistresses, from what are known as ‘small houses’ in Zimbabwe.

Speaking during a United Nations event on Thursday, Mugabe said in the Shona language, “Tiri vanhu vemeso meso. Chakabaya chikatyokera, tozviita sei? (We are easily tempted by different women. Once it is in and it has stuck right inside, what else can we do? Its an addiction, what can we do about it?)”

There are two types of marriages legally recognized in Zimbabwe -- the Marriages Act Chapter 5:11, which is monogamous, and the registered customary union, covered under the Customary Marriages Act Chapter 5:07, which recognizes man having more than one women partners.

But the government has been urging a shift from the customary marriage to monogamous marriage to avoid disputes and provide better upbringing environment for the children. Mugabe’s “morality call” is also seen as an attack on his arch- rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who was embroiled in a relationship scandal last year when he tried to remarry. The 60- year-old former opposition leader’s first wife was killed in a road accident in 2009.

Again there is an irony in this. The Crocodile cries again. 

President Robert Mugabe ‘snatched’ his current wife Grace Mugabe from under the nose of then Air of Zimbabwe (intelligence officer) and husband Stanley Goreraza. The current First Lady then known as Grace Marufu worked as Mugabe’s secretary before she became his mistress while still married to Goreraza.

At the time Mugabe’s first wife Sally Mugabe was battling a chronic kidney ailment while Mugabe was having an affair with Grace. The affair resulted in two children, Bona, named after Mugabe’s mother, and Robert Peter, Jr.

Two women filed civil cases to court blocking Tsvangirai’s marriage last year, alleging they are already “married” to the prime minister. Mugabe and Tsvangirai are expected to compete against each other for the country’s top post in the elections later this year. The two were forced into a coalition government in the wake of the last disputed polls in 2008.

One can only again conclude the world will be a better place when Mugabe departs it. That day can't come soon enough.