MARCH 29 marked the country's Waterloo. On that day, Zimbabwe was thrust into a turbulent era -- a period of uncertainty.

For the first time since becoming leader of the Republic of Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe lost an election, albeit by a dignified margin.

The fact that Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, did not garner sufficient votes to avoid a run-off gave the ZANU-PF first secretary breathing space.

President Mugabe went on to win a discredited run-off poll in which he was the only candidate after Tsvangirai pulled out citing intimidation and violence against his supporters.

Ever since, the country has been at its most defining moment.

Analysts this week said Zimbabwe needed support from regional and international bodies to resolve the current crisis after the main political parties failed to implement a power-sharing agreement signed last month.

Botswana's foreign minister, Phandu Skelemani, forewarned at the last Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Johannesburg that he feared a situation "too ghastly to contemplate" would unfold if no agreement is reached in Zimbabwe.

"If they fail, the situation will spiral. There is going to be turmoil. Then we are really heading for trouble. Some mad chap might think these fellows have failed; now I am taking over. Those are the risks you run," Skelemani said.

"I am not sure that the Zimbabweans are not going to start fighting, and then we are all in trouble. There is no option, but to agree. The consequences are too ghastly to contemplate."

The United Nations, the African Union (AU) and SADC have however, lacked the sway to take decisive action whenever stability is threatened in a member state.

The UN, for instance, has no mandate to meddle in the internal political affairs of any of its 192 member states.

Analysts said the Zimbabwe crisis is one example that could be dealt with by a more robust UN.

In May this year, a UN request to verify and assess reports of widespread politically-motivated violence in Zimbabwe was flatly rejected by President Mugabe's government.

In reply to the UN's request, Information and Publicity Minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said: "We are engaged in talks and we do not want to be distracted by trivial issues. The British and the United States sponsor the UN. The UN is a mouthpiece of the British and the US.

"We do not want to be taken back and forth. The UN is no longer the UN, as we knew it. They are hiding behind the UN when they are British. I do not want to waste my time on those issues. I have better things to do."

Ndlovu's stance simply reinforces the dire weakness of the UN as well as the deeply rooted disagreements among the member states on its effectiveness in resolving crises.

Given these concerns from some of its member states, the UN reform process could be bumpy, long and winding.

With some UN member states such as Zimbabwe having the guts to question and challenge the authority of the world body, the influence of smaller groupings such as the AU and SADC are also equally weakened.

Commenting on SADC's failure to break the impasse between Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF and the MDC, political commentator, John Ma-kumbe dismissed the regional and international bodies as mere "hot air balloons, talking shops and toothless bulldogs," which are too powerless to make real changes.

Makumbe said: "SADC, AU and UN will merely talk until chickens come home to roost. The major problem is that these organisations are toothless bulldogs."

He said continental and global organisations lacked the muscle to deal with dictatorships because of their design.

"These are impotent structures because they don't have the political clout or even the military muscles to intervene.

"And stubborn heads of state like President Mugabe know it and can pull a lot of wool over their eyes. But also any robust intervention is likely to be viewed negatively with so many hot spots around the world such as Afghanistan, Iraq and more recently Syria," he added.

"The ruling elite or class, who are the heads of state, protect themselves from the people. So it's a case of scratch-my back-and I scratch-yours and don't-push-me-and-I won't-push-you," said Makumbe.

Many of the UN's member countries, especially in Africa, gained independence after the world body matured.

The route to democracy for the new democracies has been riddled with numerous minefields of poverty, hunger, disease, corruption, unbridled political power, greed, unaccountability and blatant human rights violations.

Over time, the states have gone at tangent to the prevailing world order.

The concept of the world being a global village, where all countries hope to live and work together as good neighbours, has been misconstrued by many former colonies as a new form of neo-colonialism.

"Strengthening the UN's capacity to step in -- to resolve conflicts earlier rather than later -- is among the smartest investments we can make," says the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

During his term of office Moon hopes to "better equip and better position the United Nations to prevent and resolve conflicts at an early stage, before they escalate into larger and costlier tragedies".

In November 2007 the Secretary-General proposed, for instance, to strengthen and restructure the UN's department of Political Affairs and "transform it into a more mobile and field-oriented structure allowing for more proactive and effective use of the tools of preventive diplomacy, including mediation".

However, the most critical among his proposed changes is to improve the UN's capacity to work with member "governments to identify potential problems before they spread and to respond with timely initiatives".

While the UN's mandate forbids intervening in the internal politics of any of its member states except cases of genocide it needs to draft concrete and binding terms of reference regarding key and thorny global issues of genocide and human rights abuses, among others.