20120422
AFP
Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has got engaged to a Harare businesswoman whose father is a high ranking member of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF, his spokesman said Saturday.

"Yes, it's very true that the prime minister is engaged," said the spokesman, Luke Tamborinyoka.

"The nation will be advised if there is going to be a wedding."

His fiance Elizabeth Macheka is a 35-year-old businesswoman who runs a beauty salon in Harare.

Her father Joseph Macheka is a former mayor of Chitungwiza, south of the capital, and he is a member of the central committee in the party of Tsvangirai's long-time rival Mugabe.

Tsvangirai's wife died in a car crash, which he survived, in 2009 shortly after forming a unity government with Mugabe to pull the country out of crisis after botched polls.

Macheka's first husband, an airforce commander, died in a car crash in 2002.