Zimbabwe's opposition leader yesterday threatened to pull out of a power sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe.

The Movement for Democractic Change (MDC) leader accused Mr Mugabe of trying to secure all key ministry posts for his ruling Zanu-PF party. Morgan Tsvangirai told a rally yesterday that his MDC party would rather pull out of the power-sharing accord than accept a bad deal.

Mr Tsvangirai says he hopes South African mediator Thabo Mbeki will pressure Mr Mugabe to respect the agreement to share power signed in September. Mr Mbeki arrives in Harare today to try to break the deadlock in talks over cabinet seats.

Morgan Tsvangirai slammed an official government list published on Saturday that gave all the main ministries, including defence, home and foreign affairs, justice, mining and land to Mr Mugabe's party. It allocated only lesser ministries to the MDC, which won a slight parliamentary majority in elections earlier this year. "An idiot wouldn't accept that," Mr Tsvangirai told a rally of 15,000 supporters. "That is not power sharing, it is power grabbing."

The MDC leader won the first round of presidential elections in March but refused to take part in a run-off because of widespread violence against his supporters.