HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, locked in a standoff with the opposition in power-sharing talks, laid claim Saturday to all key ministries as he tries to retain his iron grip on the struggling southern African nation.

Opposition leaders denounced the move, saying it jeopardized a September power-sharing deal that had deadlocked over Cabinet posts.

Aid agencies have raised concerns that delays in forming a unity government are exacerbating the country's humanitarian crisis. Inflation is now at 231 million percent, and the country will have to rely on food aid to feed nearly half its population.

Mugabe's move was revealed Saturday by the state-run Herald newspaper, which published a list from the official government gazette giving the ruling ZANU-PF party 14 ministries, including defense, home and foreign affairs, justice, media, mines and land.

According to the list, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which won the first round of presidential voting and a slight majority of parliamentary seats in elections earlier this year, gets only minor ministries.

The opposition, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, immediately called the action "unilateral, contemptuous and outrageous."

Tsvangirai outpolled Mugabe, who has been in office for 28 years, in an election in March but did not win a majority. Tsvangirai had dropped out of the runoff days before it was held, citing the killing and beating of many of his party's workers and supporters.

(The New York Times contributed to this report.)

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