Why Galloway has been up all night after marrying his fourth wife, 27
Newly-wed MP reveals he has given up honeymoon to choose council candidates
Related Articles
03 April 2012
George Gallowy today boasted that he had been “up all night” as he unveiled his fourth wife, who is 30 years his junior, at his London home.
The 57-year-old Respect MP married Dutch-Indonesian research assistant Putri Gayatri Pertiwi, 27, in Amsterdam on Saturday after a whirlwind romance.
Speaking today outside his Streatham home, Mr Galloway, who won the Bradford West seat from Labour this week, joked that he had been “heavily involved until 2.45am precisely” in the “selection of our candidates for the council elections in Bradford”.
He then added with a wink: “By the Grace of God I am, to coin a phrase, indefatigable.”
The family of his spurned third wife today said she was “better off” without him. Just four months ago Rima Husseini, who used to be his researcher, gave birth to his son Faris.
The couple, who married in a Muslim ceremony in 2007, also have an older son, Zein. Ms Husseini’s Lebanese family branded the MP an unrepentant womaniser and warned his new bride to watch out.
Ms Husseini’s mother, Maha, said: “Next year he will have another wife. At least they know him. This is his fourth wife. Ask yourself if you would be angry. Maybe she is better off like that.”
Speaking from her home in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, she added: “Rima is only bothered about the children. Of course he sees the children I think. I don’t ask her a lot.”
It is not known whether Mr Galloway divorced Ms Husseini before marrying Ms Pertiwi. Under Islamic law a man is permitted to have four wives.
Speaking at her home in North Kensington today, Ms Husseini refused to say whether they were divorced. She said: “He seems to have posed for the photograph and spoken for himself about this, it is probably best you ask him. I have two small children and I don’t want to comment.”
Mr Galloway is understood to have known Ms Pertiwi — two years younger than his daughter Lucy — for about six months. They married on Saturday in an Amsterdam hotel.
Ms Pertiwi, a Muslim anthropologist and child rights specialist, studied cultural anthropology at the University of Utrecht before taking a masters degree at Amsterdam University.
She has spent the past three years working with Emic Research in Amsterdam. It is believed she got to know Mr Galloway through his Viva Palestina charity and this year accompanied him on a trip to Indonesia. Her father is understood still to live in the capital, Jakarta.
From 1979 to 1999, Mr Galloway was married to his former teenage sweetheart, Elaine Fyffe. The couple separated in 1987 but did not divorce for 12 years.
The politician took Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad, a Palestinian scientist, as a second wife in a Muslim ceremony in 1994. A year after his divorce from Ms Fyffe in 1999, he married Dr Abu-Zayyad in a civil ceremony.
In 2009 Dr Abu-Zayyad obtained an uncontested divorce citing unreasonable behaviour.
