HARARE: President Robert Mugabe has laid claim to all key Cabinet posts and Zimbabwe’s powerful state security apparatus in a direct challenge to a power-sharing agreement that has deadlocked over allocation of ministries.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called the action “unilateral, contemptuous and outrageous.’’

The state Herald newspaper on Saturday published a list from the official government gazette giving the ruling ZANU-PF party 14 ministries, including the key portfolios of defence, home and foreign affairs, justice, media, mines and land. This would allow 83-year-old Mugabe to retain his iron grip on power.

The opposition party, which won the first round of presidential voting and a slight majority of parliamentary seats in elections earlier this year, would only get minor ministries, according to the list.

Opposition party spokesman Nelson Chamisa said it was a “midnight ambush style of attack’’ and meant the proposed national unity government was now in jeopardy.

“It shows that Mugabe thinks this thing is not about power-sharing but is about power-grabbing,’’ he told The Associated Press. “We see things differently.’’

Chamisa said the opposition movement read about the ministry allocation in the Herald.

He said it had not previously been informed of the list, which was officially gazetted on Friday, just after Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai agreed to call in mediator Thabo Mbeki to try to overcome the deadlock over the allocation of Cabinet posts.

The Herald said no appointments would be made until Mbeki arrives in Harare. But it said the task of the former South African president would merely be to assist in allocating the “outstanding’’ ministry of finance given that all other ministries were now settled. It said Mugabe had provisionally assigned the Finance Ministry to the ruling party.

Mbeki is due to go to Harare on Monday, his spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga told the South African Press Association late on Friday. Mbeki negotiated a power-sharing deal that was signed by Mugabe and the main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai Sept 15. But since then there has been deadlock in Zimbabwe and Mbeki has been ousted as South African president, weakening his diplomatic clout.

Under the Sept. 15 deal, the opposition gets 16 Cabinet seats and Mugabe’s party gets 15, reflecting official results of parliamentary elections held in March.

Mugabe remains president and head of the Cabinet, and Tsvangirai, as prime minister, heads a council of ministers responsible for government policy that Mugabe does not attend.

Concerns have been raised that delays in forming a unity government are exacerbating the country’s humanitarian crisis and dashing hopes of an inflow of aid.

The U.N. food agency predicted a famine emergency in Zimbabwe with 45 per cent of the country’s population needing food help by early 2009.

Zimbabwe’s economic collapse, with inflation of at least 231 million per cent a year, has put seeds, fertiliser and farming equipment out of the reach of many. The nation is facing chronic shortages of food, medicine, gasoline, currency, electricity and water.