Zimbabwe Vice President Resigns Over Sexual Misconduct Allegations

Zimbabwe Vice President Kembo Mohadi resigned on Monday, 1 March, following local media reports he had engaged in improper conduct.

Local online media service ZimLive has in the past two weeks carried reports that Mohadi had improper sexual liaisons with married women, including one of his subordinates.

Kembo Mohadi, 71, one of the country’s vice presidents, denied that he was involved in the alleged affairs but said he was stepping down ‘to save the image of my government’.

Both Zimbabwe’s vice presidents are single after divorces.

His alleged affairs include one with a married intelligence officer. Local online media provided recordings of phone calls in which a man sounding like Mohadi propositioned several other women and spoke of drinking concoctions to enhance sexual performance.

In another recorded call, the man is heard arranging to meet another married woman for sex in his office. In a different call, the man asks another woman to have his baby, which she refused.

Mohadi, a veteran of the country’s 1970s bush war for independence from white minority rule, has been a prominent member of the government for decades. He denied he is the man in the recorded phone calls.

In his resignation letter, he said he was a victim of information distortion, voice cloning and sponsored spooking and political sabotage.

“I have been going through a soul-searching pilgrimage and realised that I need the space to deal with my problem outside the governance chair, he said in a statement released by the ministry of information.