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.

Morgan Tsvangirai

“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.