It is now up to South Africa: The continent's political and economic leader will determine just how much to cut off Zimbabwe during its year-long suspension from the Commonwealth.
South African businesses are the largest investors in Zimbabwe, and the countries are each other's most significant trading partners.
South Africa is also the major force behind the New Partnership for African Development, a political initiative that asks donor countries for more aid in exchange for a greater commitment from African nations to human rights and democracy. NEPAD has been the unspoken factor behind much of the political haggling over what to do with Zimbabwe.
Hevina Dashwood, a University of Toronto professor who has written a book about Zimbabwean politics, said South African President Thabo Mbeki will not cut Harare off now.
For one thing, Mr. Mbeki cannot afford the political capital at home -- some members of his own party favour preserving the economic relationship, and there is considerable sympathy for President Robert Mugabe's controversial land- distribution policy in Zimbabe.
Second, Mr. Mbeki cannot afford the economic cost of further disintegration in Zimbabwe.
A significant number of economic migrants from Zimbabwe have already sought refuge in South Africa, and that flow can be expected to increase sharply, straining the overburdened South African economy. Zimbabwe is already failing to pay some fuel and export bills to South Africa, Prof. Dashwood said, a problem that will grow.
Furthermore, the chaos in Zimbabwe undermines investor confidence in the region, as well as the political initiatives.
What the Commonwealth's decision to suspend Zimbabwe for a year does afford Mr. Mbeki is time.
The suspension allows him to show donor countries that Africans are serious about democracy. But the announcement was couched in language emphasizing the need for political reconciliation -- no doubt at the behest of Mr. Mbeki, who has been pressing both sides in Zimbabwe to form a unity government in recent days. This allows him to tell domestic and regional critics that he isn't simply doing the bidding of the wealthy white countries.
"This allows Mbeki to say to Mugabe, 'We're going along with the suspension, we're not giving you the recognition you want,' " said Salih Booker, director of the advocacy organization Action Africa. "But he's looking to salvage [development initiatives]and he can say to the West, 'I'm working with you, we've suspended him.' And he can look at the Africa reaction, and say, 'We're not just imposing this, we're working on the ground here for a political solution.' He's dodged the bullet on this -- at least for a year."
Mr. Mbeki has been largely silent about the Zimbabwe election. Political scientists who watch Pretoria say he was likely torn between competing factors. On a personal level, he and Mr. Mugabe do not like each other. More critically, Mr. Mbeki sees Zimbabwe's strongman damaging his campaign for an "African renaissance."
But at the same time, Mr. Mbeki knows that Mr. Mugabe's land-redistribution efforts have support in his own country, where a small white minority also owns the bulk of the land.
And he was reluctant to ally himself too strongly with the Zimbabwean opposition, because he fears the emergence of a similarly strong union-based opposition in his own country.