Even as President Robert Mugabe was inaugurated at a ceremony shunned by all but a few African leaders yesterday, questions about the legitimacy of his election mounted.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Changed (MDC) claimed to have fresh evidence - based on the government's own data - that suggested Mr Mugabe secretly manipulated vote results to steal the poll.
The MDC will present the evidence to the presidents of South Africa and Nigeria, Mr Thabo Mbeki and Mr Olusegun Obasanjo, who are visiting Harare today in a last-minute scramble to solve the escalating crisis.
The two presidents are trying to wring compromises from the stubborn autocrat in advance of a meeting tomorrow that could see Zimbabwe suspended from the Commonwealth.
The crisis is rapidly taking on a wider international dimension. It threatens to tear the Commonwealth apart and destroy a nascent plan to revitalise impoverished African countries.
However, Mr Mbeki and Mr Obasanjo will have found little cause for optimism in yesterday's swearing-in ceremony.
Addressing a crowd of war veterans and party faithful at State House Harare, Mr Mugabe vowed to accelerate his controversial programme of snatching land from white commercial farmers. He described his election win - rejected by western countries as a violent fraud - as a "stunning blow to imperialism" and "the victory of our democratic process".
The ceremony was boycotted by the MDC, as well as diplomats from the EU, the US and Britain. The only heads of states present were from five African countries - Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Namibia. The Libyan Minister for African Affairs, whose country is supplying most of Zimbabwe's fuel, also attended.
The most notable absence, however, was Mr Mbeki, who meets Mr Obasanjo and the Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, in London tomorrow to consider a highly critical report by Commonwealth election observers.
While Commonwealth leaders are split over how to deal with Mr Mugabe, failure to take a tough stance could see the organisation tearing itself apart. "It could be the end of the Commonwealth as we know it," one official warned in Harare. The New Partnership for Africa, a continent-wide development initiative, would be destroyed if Zimbabwe slides into chaos.
The MDC fraud claims are based on a dramatic discrepancy between voter turnout figures released by the Electoral Supervisory Commission - a government body of poll monitors ¡ and those announced by the Registrar General. The figures differed in over 50 constituencies by up to 19,000 votes.
According to an MDC spokesman, the variance would have allowed the government to subtract votes from the MDC in some areas and add them to Mr Mugabe's tally in others. The MDC claims it should have won by the election by over 8,000 votes. The ESC was not available for comment.