HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Saturday he was still determined to reach a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe despite the breakdown of talks between the two leaders.

Four days of negotiations ended Friday without producing an agreement on the allocation of Cabinet posts in a unity government.

"Our objective is to bring this government, Mugabe in particular, to the negotiating table ... shouting and screaming but coming to the negotiating table," Tsvangirai told thousands of supporters at a rally in the second city of Bulawayo.

The collapse of the talks is a disappointing setback that is likely to worsen the country's economic and humanitarian woes.

"The biggest challenge we have is what has been left in this country. There is nothing. Zero," Tsvangirai said.

Talks were mediated by former South African President Thabo Mbeki who brokered a Sept. 15 deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai after the opposition narrowly won March parliamentary elections

The leaders have called for intervention from regional and African leaders. They will attend a meeting of the Southern African Development Community to be held in Swaziland on Monday.

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On Saturday, opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said Mugabe's ZANU-PF party did not "seem to appreciate the meaning of power-sharing."

The opposition has accused Mugabe of trying to hold onto too many key posts. In a widely condemned "power-grab," Mugabe last weekend unilaterally claimed the most powerful posts for his own party, including defense and foreign affairs.

Chamisa said there was a deadlock on 10 key posts, but a particular sticking point has been the home affairs post, which controls the police.

He said Mugabe was only prepared to concede the Ministry of Finance to the opposition but would not compromise on home affairs.

"We are disappointed that our colleagues in ZANU-PF chose power ahead of people," Chamisa said.

Chamisa said Mugabe's party's refusal to share power in a meaningful way had left the country without a functioning government and that any further delays would only exacerbate the hardships Zimbabweans face.

"We are really disturbed that ZANU-PF is continuing to hold on to power without providing for the people," he said. "They forget the people are suffering. People are hungry."

Without a political agreement, the economic and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe has deepened. Inflation is at 231 million percent and the U.N. estimates that 45 percent of Zimbabwe's population, or 5.1 million people, will need food help by early 2009.

Chamisa said he hoped regional leaders would try to make Mugabe "see some logic."

Patrick Chinamasa, chief negotiator for Mugabe's party, said talks had faltered after the opposition "kept changing its position" on the allocation of the Home Affairs Ministry, the state-controlled newspaper The Herald reported Saturday.

The ruling party agreed to allocate the Ministry of Finance to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, Chinamasa was quoted as saying. "One can say that the discussions, however, largely centered on the issue of Home Affairs. ZANU-PF was arguing that it should get the ministry while (Tsvangirai) was also arguing that they should get the ministry."

Both parties rejected a proposal to share or rotate the ministry.

A statement from Mugabe's party was expected Saturday. On Friday Mugabe said talks had gone in the "wrong direction."

However, Mbeki denied talks had failed and said negotiations would continue at the meeting of the Southern African Development Community.

Differences could be resolved with "a little bit more time," he said as he prepared to depart Zimbabwe early Saturday.

Addressing reporters after talks ended, Tsvangirai said parties needed to embrace the "principle of equitable power-sharing" if a new government was to work.

He said proposals presented by Mugabe's party were not acceptable to his Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC.

"We are concerned there is an attempt to reduce the MDC to a meaningless position in the coalition government," he said.

He said his party remained committed to the agreement and called on the Southern Africa Development Community and the African Union to help in "crafting a sustainable way forward."

Politicians and generals who have long depended on Mugabe's patronage are believed to be balking at losing their jobs. Tsvangirai, too, is under pressure. The international community is unlikely to unlock much-needed aid and investment if Tsvangirai is seen as giving up too much, and his supporters at home already are worried he erred fatally by allowing Mugabe to retain any power.