Mugabe Clings to Power After Reaching Coalition Deal With Breakaway Mdc Faction

Robert Mugabe reached a deal to form a coalition government with a minor opposition faction yesterday, in the hope of winning international legitimacy after talks with his main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, collapsed when Zimbabwe's president refused to relinquish power.

Mugabe's agreement with Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway group from Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, to form a national unity administration will give him control of the new parliament. But it will not open the door to the foreign aid Zimbabwe desperately needs to stabilize its wrecked economy, collapsing under the weight of inflation estimated at above 10m per cent.

Britain and other foreign donors have said they will not unlock a £1bn aid package until Mugabe relinquishes power to Tsvangirai, who won the first round of presidential elections in March but withdrew from a run-off contest three months later amid a state-sponsored campaign of murder, beatings and abductions against his supporters.

The terms of the deal with Mutambara were not immediately clear, although it is likely that Mugabe offered him the newly created post of prime minister or a vice-presidency and some cabinet posts. Mugabe, however, will retain real power.

Mutambara's faction holds just 10 seats in parliament but they represent the balance of power, and will keep Zanu-PF in control after it lost its outright majority in March for the first time since independence 28 years ago.

Mutambara is an Oxford-educated robotics professor, who appeared to look down on Tsvangirai as his intellectual inferior but who failed to connect with the mass of voters. Mutambara said he would make an announcement today.

But his move was not unexpected after he made comments strongly critical of his former leader, and was praised by Mugabe on Monday. Mutambara also condemned western pressure on Zimbabwe's leader this week, saying that outsiders had no right to determine who governed his country.

Sources close to Tsvangirai said three days of negotiations in Harare mediated by South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, ran into the ground after Mugabe had agreed to appoint Tsvangirai as prime minister but insisted on retaining ultimate authority over government. Among the Zimbabwean leader's demands was one that he be the most senior member of the cabinet.

Mugabe also rejected significant constitutional reform, and insisted that a coalition administration under his authority serve a full five-year term. Tsvangirai wanted an interim government of about two years before new elections.

"Mugabe wanted Tsvangirai as a ceremonial prime minister. There was never any serious intent by Mugabe to give up power," said a source close to the negotiations.

"There is no future for these talks unless the facilitator [Mbeki] is able to come forward with proposals that demonstrate a change in Mugabe's position."

Last night Mugabe's supporters were attempting to blame Tsvangirai for the failure of the negotiations, accusing him of storming out of the talks when they did not go his way. The MDC said Tsvangirai left when the meetings were finished.

Mbeki has persistently talked up the prospects for a deal between the two main rivals for power. He had arrived on Sunday predicting an agreement within the day, in the hopes that a new government and parliament would be installed this week, permitting Mbeki to claim a great success at a regional heads of government summit in Johannesburg this weekend.

But a source close to the talks described Mbeki's role as "hopelessly weak". The source said: "The pressure only went one way, on Tsvangirai, and he had no proposals to break the logjam."

Human Rights Watch yesterday said that the state-orchestrated campaign of violence that crushed support for Tsvangirai in June's presidential run-off election, had claimed the lives of at least 163 opposition activists and supporters, with more than 5,000 others beaten and tortured. The group said 32 people have been murdered in violence since the election.

Profile: Arthur Mutambara

· Born in May 1966, Arthur Mutambara is a former student leader who is recognised as one of Africa's most prominent scientists.

· While at the University of Zimbabwe in the late 1980s, he led the student opposition to the ruling ZANU-PF.

· A former Rhodes Scholar, he specialized in the study of robotics. After a doctorate at Oxford, he went to MIT and became professor at several other universities in the US.

· Leader of a breakaway faction of the opposition MDC, Mutambara was arrested in June for criticizing Robert Mugabe's handling of the March elections in an article in the privately owned weekly, the Standard. Mutambara also accused the government of intimidation, and questioned its right to stay in office.