Mbeki, right, brokered the initial deal between Tsvanigrai and Mugabe [EPA]

Speaking on Thursday, Tsvangirai insisted that the power-sharing deal could still work and suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former South African president, could intervene to break the impasse.

Mbeki brokered the initial deal between Tsvanigrai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Mugabe's Zanu-PF, signed in September, but since then the rival parties have been unable to reach an agreement on cabinet posts.

"We are confident about the potential of the deal. There is nothing wrong with the deal," Tsvangirai said.

He did not mention the former South African leader by name, but referred to a "facilitator".

"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," he said.

Mbeki's spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Political deadlock

Tsvangirai's comments came more than three weeks after the power-sharing deal was signed.

Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a first round of presidential voting in March, but pulled out of a June run-off, accusing the Zanu-PF of violence against his supporters.

Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, the leader of a breakaway MDC faction, signed a power-sharing deal, brokered by Mbeki, on September 15.

Under the agreement brokered by Mbeki, 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.

Hyper-inflation

"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."

State media announced on Thursday that Zimabwe's inflation rate had soared to 231 million per cent 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.

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