HARARE—Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is becoming dangerously isolated among traditional regional allies as he toughs out the greatest crisis of his rule with a typically defiant response, analysts say.
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party lost control of parliament for the first time in a March 29 election and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he has also won the parallel presidential poll.
After wavering in the days after the vote, Mugabe, 84, has come back fighting, extending a three week delay in issuing the presidential result and calling for recounts in the parliamentary poll.
The waiting-game strategy has had some success, pushing Zimbabwe down the news agenda and diminishing the impact of a storm of international condemnation.
Insiders say ZANU-PF is pressing ahead with preparations for an expected election runoff against Tsvangirai and Mugabe, backed by army and party hardliners, looks as defiant as ever.
Analysts say he can by no means be counted out, but a significant shift in regional opinion has dealt him a severe blow. Maritime states in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) this week refused to allow a Chinese ship carrying arms to landlocked Zimbabwe to unload at their ports.
At the same time, some long-passive neighbours began piling pressure on Mugabe to release the results. South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma has been particularly vocal, in contrast to President Thabo Mbeki, widely seen as too soft on Mugabe.
Since ousting Mbeki as party leader, Zuma has eroded the president's power to rival him as the most powerful man in South Africa.
"The apparent shift that we are witnessing is tipping the scales against him (Mugabe), and he is going to need all his political skills to pull this one off," said Professor Eldred Masunungure, of the University of Zimbabwe in Harare.
"I think for the first time at a very crucial moment, Mugabe is losing diplomatic support in the region and without that support his ability to survive politically is diminished."
Regional support
Mugabe has over his 28 years in power, weathered the challenge of a robust opposition at home and loud Western pressure by maintaining support among neighbouring countries where many still hold him in awe as an African liberation hero.
But analysts say Zimbabwe's deepening economic turmoil, with a contagion effect on a region hosting millions of Zimbabwean economic refugees, and the clumsily botched election may start to turn the tide.
"This election has been handled so badly that even some of Mugabe's friends are embarrassed and that is why we are seeing all these statements now," said Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of political pressure group National Constitutional Assembly.
"But I still don't think they will go the extra mile to join in efforts to get Mugabe and ZANU-PF out of power," he said.
Zimbabwe's neighbours do not have a huge number of options for tightening the screws on Mugabe's government, but could theoretically cut credit lines to state-owned transport and electricity firms.
Tsvangirai and foreign powers including former colonial ruler Britain accuse Mugabe of seeking a run-off to rig victory.
Mugabe's government has studiously avoided commenting on suggestions that SADC and Africa are turning against it.
Neither have they commented on an article by a pro-government commentator suggesting the veteran leader should lead a national unity administration.
Rights groups back charges by Tsvangirai that Mugabe has deployed militias to cow the opposition ahead of the runoff.
No date has been set, pending an official result, but analysts estimate it could be held at the end of May. They believe Mugabe cancelled a summit of Africa's largest trade bloc, Comesa, in Zimbabwe next month to avoid a boycott by some leaders or pressure from his allies.
Tsvangirai has threatened to shun a runoff unless it is supervised by international observers, including the United Nations. But Mugabe is unlikely to budge on that.
Mugabe, who came to power in 1980 after leading a guerrilla war, is still pursuing his classic strategy of trying to deflect public attention away from Zimbabwe's economic collapse by condemning his Western foes, especially Britain.
The analysts say he has dragged out the election deadlock not only to give ZANU-PF time to prepare for a runoff but also to try to draw Britain into a quarrel, fuelling his constant theme that London is trying to recolonise the country.
"The more they talk about us, the more they talk about Mugabe, Zimbabwe and Tsvangirai, the better for ZANU-PF because some of our own people were beginning to doubt that we are fighting a power seeking to make Zimbabwe a colony again," said one ZANU-PF official who asked not to be named.
Critics say while Mugabe might still manage to hang onto power, he would have to contend with rising anger on the streets despite his readiness to crack down hard on dissent, a readiness that has drawn repeated accusations of human rights abuses, including arbitrary detentions and torture.
Food, fuel and foreign currency shortages and the world's highest inflation rate of more than 164,000 percent show no signs of easing in an economy which many say was destroyed by Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms for landless blacks.
"Even if Mugabe manages to hang on, he is going to be dogged by questions of legitimacy, questions that he is hanging on by sheer force," said Masunungure.
"His image is never going to be the same."
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