Zimbabwean parliament will hold the first meeting next week since the disputed presidential election in March, according to agencies.

The parliament will convene despite a deadlock in power-sharing negotiations to end a post-election crisis, an official said Tuesday.

"The swearing in would take place on Monday or Tuesday to enable new legislators to execute mandate they were given by the people," parliamentary official Austin Zvomahe said.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said it was not opposed to convene parliament but would reject any appointment of a cabinet by President Robert Mugabe before an sharing-power deal is reached.

"If he (Mugabe) goes further and appoints a cabinet, it will be against the letter and spirit of the MOU," the MDC spokesman Tapiwa Mashakada said.

Zimbabwean President and ruling Zano-PF candidate Mugabe won a landslide victory in the presidential run-off election on June 27.

The Zimbabwe election committee said official results showed that Mugabe, 84, won 85.5 percent of the votes in the election against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's 9.3 percent, defeating Tsvangirai by a huge margin.

Zimbabwe held the presidential run-off election as scheduled despite opposition MDC leader Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the race. Tsvangirai withdrew from the election citing various reasons, including political violence.

Tsvangirai received 47.9 percent of the votes in the first round of election held on March 29, followed by President Robert Mugabe's 43.2 percent.

An outright winner needs to obtain an absolute majority of the votes, otherwise a run-off needs to be held, according to Zimbabwe's law.

Observers from many countries and organizations, including the African Union and the SADC monitored the election.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2008)