Ruling party says Mugabe must lead unity government

By Nelson Banya

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's ruling party will not accept a power-sharing deal that fails to recognise his re-election or seeks to reverse his land reform programme, a state-owned newspaper said on Friday.

The conditions, which the Herald newspaper said were agreed at a ZANU-PF politburo meeting earlier this week, could dim prospects for a deal at negotiations between Mugabe's party and two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

The talks began on Thursday under South African mediation. They aim to break the deadlock over Mugabe's victory in a June 27 run-off election, boycotted by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai because of violence and condemned by Western nations.

"The meeting noted that there has to be a figure who appoints the all-inclusive government envisaged in the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the three parties on Monday," the Herald said.

"And that figure is President Mugabe who won the run-off."

The newspaper also said ZANU-PF would never agree to a national unity government that sought to reverse Mugabe's controversial seizure of thousands of white-owned firms to give to landless blacks.

Critics say the farm seizures helped wreck the once prosperous economy and bring food shortages and inflation now running at 2 million percent, but the opposition has said it would not go back on the land seizures.