Zimbabwe's beaten down opposition may end up being forced to accept what it swears is unacceptable _ a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe.

Some say it would only prolong Zimbabwe's agony, while others see a coalition _ perhaps with Mugabe as president and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister or vice president _ as the only way to lead the nation out of the impasse and begin reversing its economic collapse.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, appointed by the main regional bloc to mediate between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, has said some form of coalition is the goal of talks that got off to a tentative start in South Africa on July 10.

On Friday, the opposition applauded plans announced for Mbeki to work closely with the U.N. and the African Union as he attempts to mediate, saying that this satisfies its demand that Mbeki be joined by another mediator. The opposition had accused Mbeki of favoring Mugabe.

George Sibotshiwe, a spokesman for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, said Friday's announcement could open the way to agreement in coming days on a framework for power-sharing talks.

A partnership with Mugabe may be the best hope remaining for Tsvangirai's party.

Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party remain adamant that he is Zimbabwe's duly elected leader, even if most of the rest of the world says a June 27 runoff in which he claimed overwhelming victory over Tsvangirai was a sham.

More ominously, Mugabe's military chiefs say their allegiance is only to Mugabe.

Any dramatic intervention by the outside world looks unlikely. On July 11 Russia and China delivered a rare twin veto of a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution that would have imposed sanctions on Mugabe and his top aides. The aim was to punish them for allegedly overseeing political violence and fraud, and to force them to negotiate.

ZANU-PF has said it's open to power-sharing _ as long as Mugabe heads any coalition. The opposition says publicly it's open to what it calls a "government of national healing," but only with moderate ZANU-PF members, not Mugabe.

Nqobizitha Mlilo, spokesman for Tsvangirai's party, told The Associated Press this week that its position on Mugabe had not changed.

But Davie Malungisa, director of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for Zimbabwe, an independent Harare-based group, described Tsvangirai's objection to Mugabe as a negotiating position.

"When you are getting into bargaining ... you start from very high," Malungisa said in a telephone interview from Zimbabwe. "It's a matter of who blinks first."

A political marriage of convenience to avert bloodshed is not unprecedented. Both Mugabe and Nelson Mandela in South Africa included whites in their governments after toppling white rule.

A more recent model is Kenya, where rival factions agreed to share power after a disputed presidential election in December led to violence. The agreement left incumbent Mwai Kibaki, accused of stealing the vote, as president, with his rival, Raila Odinga as prime minister.

Zimbabwe's violence, though not on the scale or ethnic fury of Kenya's, has been devastating to Tsvangirai's party. It estimates more than 120 of its activists have been killed by Mugabe's police, soldiers and party militants since the first round of the presidential election was held in March.

Deaths, arrests and threats that have sent surviving activists underground have robbed the party of organizational and negotiating skills at a crucial point.

With the international community increasingly eager to prosecute dictators, Mugabe may see hanging onto power as his only protection from trial.

Tsvangirai has sought to allay Mugabe's concern by saying he would not pursue human-rights or war-crimes trials against him or his lieutenants, because these would distract Zimbabweans from the task of rebuilding the nation.

Geraldine Mattioli, a specialist on international justice with Human Rights Watch, challenges that approach.

"It might be tempting to give immunity to someone like Mugabe," she said. But "in our view, trading justice for what is perceived as peace often has very negative consequences in the long term."

Malungisa says agreeing to govern alongside a man accused of torturing and killing dissidents "would be suicidal," because Mugabe could betray Tsvangirai.

But he also said the opposition has little room to maneuver _ that while Mugabe's forces are regrouping, Tsvangirai's are being weakened.

"They've been tortured into negotiations," he said.

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Donna Bryson is the AP's chief of bureau for southern Africa.