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HARARE, March 7, 2009 – Morgan
Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's prime minister, has been hurt in a car crash in
which his wife was killed, his party has said.
The crash occurred on Friday near Beatrice, a town lying about 60km from
Harare, the capital, a source within Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) said.
"Mrs [Susan] Tsvangirai died on the spot. The accident happened between
1600 hours (14:00 GMT) and 1700 hours but the details are still
sketchy," the source said.
Tsvangirai is in a stable condition, a senior MDC official said after
visiting him at a private hospital on the outskirts of Harare. An aide
was also hurt in the crash.
"He is in a stable condition but on a machine," the official said,
adding that he did not know what kind of treatment Tsvangirai was
getting.
State television reported that Tsvangirai suffered some head and neck
wounds in the crash.
Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president and a long-time rival of
Tsvangirai, later visited him in hospital with his wife but did not
speak to reporters.
'Truck hit car'
The prime minister had been travelling to a rally south of Harare when
his car was hit by a lorry travelling in the opposite direction, an MDC
minister told the AFP news agency.
"He was hit by a haulage truck. The driver of the truck appeared to be
sleeping. [Tsvangirai] was travelling to his rural home in Buhera where
he was due to hold a rally Saturday," the minister said.
Haru Mutasa, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Nairobi, Kenya, said that
Tsvangirai's car was travelling as part of a convoy at the time of the
crash.
"People are wondering how this could happen if he were travelling in a
convoy. Why was his car the only one apparently damaged?" she said.
"The coalition government is very fragile and people will speculate and
start reading into it; they know the relationship between Tsvangirai and
Mugabe was never that good to begin with."
Fragile government
Senior officials in the MDC have not said that they suspect foul play to
be a cause of the crash, Mutasa said.
"MDC officials are being very careful and don't want to cause any
unnecessary tension in Zimbabwe," she said.
"They do not want to make the [three-week-old] fragile coalition
government any weaker than it already is."
While Susan Tsvangirai was not actively involved in the MDC, she has
accompanied her husband at the party's campaign rallies over the past 10
years.
They have been married for 31 years and have six children.
Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister of a national unity government
in February after months of political wrangling between Mugabe's Zanu-PF
party and the MDC over a disputed presidential election, which the MDC
claims Tsvangirai won.
The new administration is tasked with tackling severe food and fuel
shortages, record hyperinflation and a cholera outbreak that the World
Health Organisation (WHO) says has killed at least 4,000 people.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
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