Wither Tsvangirai's pension in Grace Mugabe's Zimbabwe

Vice-President Joice Mujuru, axed from Robert Mugabe's Government for scheming to overthrow the President, will receive her terminal benefits and enjoy personal security, medical aid, travel allowances and domestic workers, but former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who served at par with her and completed his term without any complaints from the Head of State remains unpaid.

This is just one of the stark reminders of Zanu-PF defiance and refusal to even make any pretence to adhering to ruling by law.

As Zanu-PF continues to take this belligerent stance, opposition parties that have hitherto chosen peaceful and safe politics are now beginning to question where the peaceful protest is taking them.

Added to that mix of radicalisation of frustrated opposition political activists is the assault on civic organisations whose civic activism is equated by Zanu-PF with regime-change. Zanu-PF is not wrong to equate civic activism with regime change because, by its very nature civic activism empowers citizens, and no empowered citizens would tolerate a government that is as incompetent as the one running Zimbabwe.

The realisation of the goals of the civic society movement, such as freedom of association for the people, freedom to participate in free and fair elections, the right to enjoy human rights and have accountable government and so on, would have a negative consequence on Zanu-PF's rule since it relies on violating these rights to keep people under control and stay in power.

So whether they like it or not, human rights activists are now seen as legitimate targets of Zanu-PF - which explains the recent arrest of Crisis In Zimbabwe Coalition leaders, spokesman Mfundo Mlilo and programmes manager Nixon Nyikadzino, together with Occupy Africa Unity leader Dirk Frey.

It explains the abduction and feared killing of Itai Dzamara two years into Zanu-PF's stolen term, the term that was supposed to see implementation of constitutional arrangements that were agreed before the 2013 election and which have not been implemented up to now.

While former President Joice Mujuru, who was fired from office by the President, has been assured that she will have her own domestic workers, a gardener, two drivers, a private secretary, a close security unit officer, two aide-de-camp officers, use of a government Mercedes Benz motor vehicle, a colour television set, medical cover and air travel once a year, former Prime Minister Tsvangirai's benefits remain tangled in politics.

President Mugabe's gazetting of VP Mujuru pension itself has apparently been criticised by his increasingly misfiring wife, Grace, known in Zanu-PF circles as Dr Amai, who does not even see the sarcasm in being called Dr Amai.

If it was up to Dr Amain, Dr Joice Mujuru would not be paid "as she was fired for failing (in) her job, according to Dr Amain quoted in the local Press, but rather than humiliating Mai Mujuru as demanded by Dr Amai President Mugabe has assured her of her pension.

But why do so without also dealing with the Prime Minister's pension? Could it be that Dr Amai's crazy logic is being applied to President Morgan Tsvangirai only because he does not accept that he was defeated in the last three general elections in which Zanu-PF claimed victory?

So where does it say in the Presidential Pension and Retirement Benefits Act that the former incumbent must accept that he has been beaten in an election for the pension to be paid?

Dr Amai has come out at a rally saying that some people think that she is mad. While it is good that she knows that they really do think that she is crazy, the sad thing is that because of the power she wields through her husband, even Vice Presidents would put up with her madness in which she tells rallies that the two vice-presidents take notes when she speaks to them.

And now she has taken the delusion even higher by reportedly warning one of the Vice Presidents that if he becomes ambitious he can go the way of Dr Mujuru who is widely believed to have been pushed out of Zanu-PF by Dr Amai.

The implication here is that she is now also threatening sitting vice-presidents with the same treatment. No wonder Retired Major Kudzai Mbudzi once described her as insane and a "psychotic woman" who took after her own psychotic mother.

But mad-or-not-mad, Grace has become a rallying point for Zanu-PF supporters who know that their hypocritical liberation movement, whose leaders have now been exposed as aggrandisers, can never win a free and fair election.

They will hide under her petticoats and her foul mouth which not ashamed to say in front of chiefs and leading lights of society that men who abuse children should instead go for prostitutes.

The Zanu-PF supporters believe that in the event of Mugabe's death or incapacitation the MDC-T will have an easy walk to power in a free and fair election, so they will rally around an obviously mad woman whose untrained sensibilities can become a weapon of mass destruction.

If she were to gain real power she would plunge Zimbabwe into the worst crisis any country has ever seen. And the more frightening thing is that the rest of Zanu-PF, the supposedly rational people within Zanu-PF, seem to be content to watch from the sidelines as their former liberation movement disintegrates into an unaccountable family dynasty.

The irrational decision on President Tsvangirai's pension is just another example of this unaccountability and it is to President Tsvangirai's credit that he has not been standing on top of a mountain demanding his pension. Instead he has ensured the humiliation of being presented by the state media as an insolvent person. This is the magnanimity of the man.