Harare, Zimbabwe — President Mugabe faced a backlash from his Zanu-PF party over Zimbabwe’s power-sharing agreement yesterday as several of his ministers faced the prospect of imminent unemployment.

After benefiting from years of patronage and corruption, many of his senior officials will lose their jobs when a new cabinet is agreed. Only 15 seats are reserved for Zanu-PF, down from its previous total of 32 cabinet posts and 19 deputy ministerial jobs.

Senior Zanu-PF figures have been left “shattered” by the agreement with the Movement for Democratic Change, sources said. At the weekend a senior politburo member privately said: “Mugabe has sold out.”

But Mr. Mugabe, 84, blamed his own party for the power-sharing deal with Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader and the new prime minister. “It’s because of your divisions I have had to sign this document,” the president told a meeting of the politburo last weekend. Ibbo Mandaza, once a senior official who remains well connected to Mr. Mugabe’s party, said: “Zanu-PF has virtually lost its hold on the country. Few if any Zanu-PF ministers will have allegiance to Mugabe. They will be swimming for their own survival.”

As a party Zanu-PF was doomed, he said. “Mugabe caused the divisions in his party, that’s the problem. He can’t even see he is the problem. He has destroyed his party.

“African political parties live off the state. When a ruling party loses state power, it’s the end. Without power they become moribund and useless. It’s a party which has been sustained by violence and patronage. Violence will be contained by the agreement and patronage is over.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Mugabe remains president and chairman of the cabinet, although a parallel “council of ministers” will be headed by Mr. Tsvangirai.

There is still an opportunity for Mr. Mugabe to wield his vaunted political skills and attempt to impose himself on Zimbabwe’s future.