Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who celebrated his 83rd birthday on Saturday at a lavish party, looks set to rule the country a bit longer than a lot of his fellow countrymen would want. Whether he'll manage to maintain his grip on power for much longer will depend on his opponents. If the weakened opposition party doesn't look like likely to throw him off the throne, maybe Zimbabwe's failing economy is a stronger contender.

" (The) failing economy now presents a greater threat to President Mugabe's government than the political opposition and pressure groups all put together," says an editorial in the Zimbabwe Independent.

The new "constituency" of poorly paid workers and scores of unemployed people want to be able to feed their families and to send their kids to school rather than hear about "false patriotism and infantile promises of an economic turnaround", the paper says.

Reuters correspondent Nelson Banya describes how he battles with daily power and water shortages in Harare and he's one of the lucky ones, with a secure job. Infant mortality to match Somalia's, sky-rocketing post-natal maternal mortality rates, the world's highest inflation rates and the fastest economic decline in a state that's not even at war are just a short list of examples of the legacy of Mugabe's 27 years in power, Britain's Sunday Times reports.

Even non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are struggling. "The NGOs are operating in a war-like situation with high inflation and an increased demand for (their) services... as the government structures have failed to provide for the shattered public. Yet the state prevents NGOs from reaching out to as many people as they can afford to as they have to use the official exchange rate... unlike in real war situations", John Makumbe, a Harare-based political analyst, is quoted by the U.N. news agency IRIN.

According to the New York Times, the police banned any form of political gatherings or demonstrations last week, saying that the potential for looting and vandalism made the ban necessary. But not even the possibility of being arrested or beaten can stop normally law-abiding citizens from taking political action, it seems.

"There is a new mood in this country. When people can't afford the cost of transport to go to work, let alone eat or pay the rent, and that includes much of the army and police, the government becomes very vulnerable... Things could change very quickly in the next few months," the Sunday Times quoted a Western diplomat.

But most commentators don't seem to think change is going to come from Zimbabwe's main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, which split into two in 2005. Neither side is likely to fare too well in elections, up against the ruling party. Then what about Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF? Could the force for a regime change come from within?

Mugabe's recent cabinet reshuffle shows he wants his loyalists exactly where he needs them, according to Brian Raftopoulos of South Africa's Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. He says the president's got his backers installed in the right positions to help him extend his leadership until 2010, he says in an analysis in the Zimbabwe Independent.

However unlikely this might seem, Zanu-PF may still reinvent itself, especially with the opposition's ongoing "strategic blunders", Raftopoulos argues. In any case, such an outcome would "not be unfavourable for a South African government that has always been more concerned with the "stability" of its neighbour than with a more profound democratic transition", Raftopoulos concludes.

South Africa's Cape Argus and Business Day also disapprove of their country's silence on the disastrous situation in Zimbabwe.

"Shouldn't we be getting a little bit noisy by now?" the Cape Argus asks. And Business Day urges South Africa to make sure it takes up a position that will ensure it a significant role in Zimbabwe's transition, which the paper believes is coming soon.

It's not just South Africa - other African countries are keeping quiet. In which case, the Herald says: " (International) observers have a right to be anxious about the security of democracy in Africa when a despot such as Mugabe goes unchallenged by his own neighbours."

James Kirchick, assistant to the editor-in-chief of U.S. political magazine New Republic, has a bone to pick with the United Nations for not doing enough to help Zimbabwe's refugees, who are mostly in South Africa.

Setting out his stance in an editorial for the New York Sun , he says: "The complete abandonment of Zimbabwean refugees and the simultaneous indulgence of the Palestinians supports the contention that the United Nations serves as a political tool for the Muslim world as it did for the Soviets during the Cold War." It's an extreme view, but many would join him in arguing for more U.N. support for Zimbabwean refugees.

Whatever the international community's failings in not condemning - and, in some cases, allying themselves with Mugabe - 27 years of Mugabe's iron-fist rule have taken their toll on Zimbabwe. Even if many believe the economic collapse may force some political change in the country, they should look around the continent and be a little cautious, Alec Russell and Tony Hawkins say in the Financial Times.

"(While) he is not the man he once was, tragically for Zimbabweans, it would be a mistake to underestimate his staying power," they lament.

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