Mugabe and Tsvangirai still at odds on ministries

By Cris Chinaka

HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai failed to settle differences in talks on Saturday over the finance and home affairs ministries in a new Zimbabwe government.

A meeting of the two men, also attended by Arthur Mutambara, leader of a smaller faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was held to try to break the deadlock over cabinet posts which threatens a power-sharing deal.

"The president and the two leaders of the MDC formations met this morning in consultation over the setting up of government but failed to conclude their consultation," Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba said in a statement.

"However, they decided that there should be further consultation at the level of their negotiating teams exclusively over the ministries of finance and home affairs."

Officials said Mugabe and Tsvangirai were expected to meet again early next week.

"This is an indication that we may get an agreement sooner than we expected," Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a political pressure group, said.

Talks between Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF and the MDC have reached an impasse over who will control key ministries in a unity government to be established under the power-sharing deal agreed on September 15.

A senior government official earlier declined to specify when an agreement was expected or whether there was pressure from former South African President Thabo Mbeki -- who is mediating in the Zimbabwe crisis -- to form a government.  Continued...