Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe is expected to get the green light from his ZANU-PF party today to form a government in the next week with or without the opposition, party officials said.
Such a move would likely finish off a fragile power sharing pact which has been deadlocked for months while the parties fight over control of key cabinet posts.
Analysts had seen the pact as the best hope for averting total collapse in Zimbabwe, where hyper-inflation means prices double every day and a cholera epidemic has killed more than 1,100 people.
Mr Mugabe said on Friday he had invited Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), to be sworn-in as prime minister in a shared government under the September 15th pact.
But Mr Tsvangirai's MDC said it had not received an invitation, and the leader said on Friday talks on a unity government could collapse over abductions of MDC supporters which he blamed on Mugabe's party.
ZANU-PF officials said it would end its annual conference with a resolution urging Mr Mugabe to urgently form a government. Mr Mugabe is due to address the conference later today.
"The conference will resolve that President Mugabe implement the November SADC resolution to immediately form a government, most probably in the next week," a senior ZANU-PF official said.
"We have waited for too long and our people are impatient and suffering. With or without the MDC, the government will have to be formed," the official, who declined to be named, said.
Reuters