Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Saturday President Robert Mugabe had been totally intransigent on power-sharing proposals, after the two rivals asked neighbouring nations to help break their deadlock.

"The past four days have been a dialogue of the deaf," Tsvangirai told thousands of supporters in the second city of Bulawayo, referring to marathon meetings with Mugabe this week mediated by former South African president Thabo Mbeki.

"It was one-man monologue. Mugabe does not negotiate. He just says 'No'. He was saying 'No' since Monday. We had to tell Mbeki it was no use continuing with negotiations with someone who does not want to negotiate."

Both sides on Friday asked the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) of regional countries, which appointed Mbeki to mediate, to intervene in the dispute.

"The reason we are going to Sadc is we want the deal to work. We are hopeful that something positive will come from the Sadc meeting on Monday," Tsvangirai said on Saturday.

Mbeki said he would travel with the Zimbabwean leaders to Swaziland on Monday, where a three-member Sadc security body will try to find a solution.

Mbeki brokered the original pact signed a month ago, which calls for 84-year-old Mugabe to remain as president while Tsvangirai takes the new post of prime minister, with cabinet posts being shared out.

Threats to pull out

Tsvangirai threatened to pull out of the deal after Mugabe last week unilaterally awarded the most important ministries to his party, leaving him firmly in charge of the military and police.

Patrick Chinamasa, lead negotiator for Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, said in state media on Saturday that the talks hinge on control of the home affairs ministry. This oversees the police force, which stands accused of widespread human rights abuses.

He told the Herald newspaper that Zanu-PF had agreed to give Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) control of the finance ministry, a critical portfolio in a country grappling with the world's highest rate of inflation, at 231 million percent.

"One can say that the discussions, however, largely centred on the issue of Home Affairs. Zanu-PF was arguing that it should get the ministry while (Tsvangirai) was also arguing that they should get the ministry," Chinamasa said.

Tsvangirai has insisted that his party needs oversight of at least some security agencies to reassure his supporters, who were the target of deadly political violence during election campaigning earlier in the year.

Issue of trust

"We are concerned there is an attempt to reduce the MDC to a meaningless position in the coalition government," he said after the talks ended late on Friday.

He added on Saturday: "The biggest problem we had was the issue of trust," saying that Mugabe had denied having the ministerial appointments announced in the official gazette.

"We don't want to raise the expectations of Zimbabweans. We will not betray you. We were trying to negotiate the implementation of the deal but it failed with Mugabe refusing to shift," he told his supporters.

Experts said the two sides would come round.

"Eventually they will come to an agreement. Both parties are desperate to remain in the deal," Lovemore Madhuku, chairperson of the National Constitutional Commission, told AFP.

"It's likely that Sadc will push Mugabe to give home affairs to the MDC," he added.

Independent analyst Collin Mashava echoed him, saying: "Despite the disagreement I still think there is no way out for both parties. There will be an agreement eventually."

Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a first round presidential vote in March, when the MDC also forced the Zanu-PF into the minority in parliament for the first time.

But the former union leader failed to win enough votes to declare outright victory and then pulled out of the run-off in June, accusing the regime of coordinating a brutal campaign of violence that left more than 100 of his supporters dead.

The political stalemate has dimmed hope for rescuing Zimbabwe from its stunning collapse from a model economy to a ruin of hunger and poverty.

Once one of Africa's most prosperous nations, Zimbabwe now suffers critical food shortages, with nearly half its people needing UN aid and 80 percent of the population living in poverty.

The United States and the European Union have threatened to toughen their sanctions on the regime if the unity accord falls apart.

AFP