Zimbabwe PM hurt, wife killed in car crash

HARARE (AFP)

Zimbabwe’s new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was hospitalised Friday after a car crash that killed his wife, just three weeks after taking office in a unity government, his party said.

The couple was headed to their hometown in Buhera district where he was to hold a rally on Saturday, but their car was hit by a freight truck and Susan Tsvangirai died at the scene, party officials said.

“He is stable,” Finance Minister Tendai Biti, Tsvangirai’s top political aide, told reporters after visiting the premier at a private hospital.

Douglas Gwatidzo, a physician who visited Tsvangirai, declined to give details on his injuries but said “he is okay.”

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena was quoted by state television as saying that the truck had crossed into the oncoming lane and side-swiped Tsvangirai’s vehicle.

“The 4x4 Toyota Landcruiser is understood to have overturned and rolled thrice,” the report said.

Tsvangirai’s spokemsan James Maridadi told reporters at the hospital in Harare that the accident happened at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT), and that two other people were in the car.

“The driver of the truck appeared to be sleeping,” an MDC minister told AFP.

Another source who had visited him at the hospital said Tsvangirai’s head appeared swollen, but doctors had not yet commented on his condition.

President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace went to the hospital to visit him, but did not speak to reporters.

Tsvangirai was sworn in three weeks ago as prime minister, joining his long-time rival Mugabe in a unity government. Ministers from both Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF were seen entering the hospital to visit him.

“I will have to get used to it,” she says of public life in a 2000 interview with Zimbabwe’s Daily News. “How will I avoid it? There will be no place to hide.”