This, at least, explains the Mugabe economic mystery. He’s getting rich thanks to a mixture of debt-fuelled spending, soaring mineral prices and deep-pocketed, studiously amoral Chinese buyers. It may be a fake kind of growth, and Zimbabwe is still far behind where it was before he started to tear his country apart. But there are signs that the improvement helps him politically. Even last year, opinion polls showed support for the opposition significantly weakening and Zanu-PF taking the lead. There is no doubt that Zimbabweans have yet again just seen a twisted, corrupt election. But even if it had been free and fair, that would have been no guarantee of a landslide victory for Morgan Tsvangirai.