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HARARE : Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Thursday that power-sharing talks with President Robert Mugabe's government had stalled and outside mediation was needed to break the deadlock.
But he insisted the deal to form a joint unity government could work, saying: "We are confident about the potential of the deal. There is nothing wrong with the deal."
"In the process of implementation, we have hit an impasse but not on fundamental contents of the deal," he added.
"We have declared a deadlock and therefore the process cannot move forward except in the presence of the facilitator... We have asked him to come over and he has said he will come over," Tsvangirai said.
Former South African president Thabo Mbeki was the facilitator who brokered the deal between the longtime political rivals.
Mbeki's spokesman in South Africa was not immediately available for comment, and Tsvangirai did not mention him by name.
Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a first round of voting in March, but pulled out of a June run-off, citing deadly violence against his supporters.
The two men, along with a breakaway leader from Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), signed the power-sharing deal on September 15.
Under the agreement, 84-year-old Mugabe remains as president while Tsvangirai takes the new post of prime minister.
But efforts to form the government have bogged down over disputes about who will control the most important ministries, such as defence, home affairs and finance.
"On the day we signed the agreement, the people of Zimbabwe breathed a sigh of relief and their hopes for a final resolution of this crisis were raised." Tsvangirai said.
"Unfortunately no progress has been made since then to bring the Zimbabwean people to the beginning of the path of recovery. Instead the economic crisis has worsened.
"We now live in an environment characterised by hunger, starvation and we are days away from seeing people dropping dead on the streets."
State media announced Thursday that Zimabwe's inflation rate soared to 231 million percent in July -- the highest in the world.
The United Nations estimates that nearly half of the population will need food aid, with 80 percent of the population living in poverty.
Although Mbeki was forced by his own party to resign as president last month, his country's new leadership -- along with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union -- have backed his continued role as mediator.
Tsvangirai said he still hoped to find a solution with the help of a mediator.
"We have communicated this position to SADC and the AU as well as to the facilitator, and have confidence that our African brothers will do everything in their power to ensure that this issue is resolved with speed," he said.
"We as Zimbabweans owe it to our African counterparts to ensure that we spare no effort in resolving the outstanding issues."
Earlier in the day, the AU and SADC issued a statement confirming their support for Mbeki's mediation in the crisis.
"We encourage the parties to live up to the expectations of the people of Zimbabwe and the international community by fully and faithfully implementing the agreement they have reached," it said.
- AFP/vm
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