Neither Sexwale nor former union chief Cyril Ramaphosa, also seen as an alternative to Mbeki and Zuma, have been nominated for the ANC presidency. They could, however, still end up on the ballot through a floor nomination at the Dec. 16-20 congress.
Mbeki, for his part, has never recanted his unorthodox AIDS views and continues to exercise sway over the direction of the government's AIDS policy, largely through his unwavering support for controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
Dubbed Dr. Beetroot for her promotion of beetroot, garlic and other foods as frontline treatments for HIV/AIDS, Tshabalala-Msimang has been branded an AIDS denialist by angry scientists and grassroots activists.
LEADERSHIP VACUUM?
Hopes of a shift in the government's attitude to a disease affecting nearly 12 percent of its 47 million people were stoked earlier this year when Tshabalala-Msimang withdrew from public life after a liver transplant.
A revamped AIDS strategy, including an expanded rollout of ARVs, was unveiled at about the same time, with Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and former Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge spearheading a more orthodox approach.
Activists in the ANC and its leftist coalition partners, who had for years been calling for such a U-turn, were delighted.
But Mbeki muddied the waters again when he fired Madlala-Routledge, ostensibly for failing to seek permission for a foreign trip but widely seen as punishment for stealing the limelight from the ailing health minister, an Mbeki ally.
Tshabalala-Msimang has returned to her post.
The AIDS debate is unlikely to be the make-or-break issue when the more than 4,000 ANC delegates cast ballots in Polokwane this month despite a widespread recognition that it is one of South Africa's biggest problems and one of the ANC's biggest failures.
"We were fiddling whilst our Rome was burning," Archbishop Desmond Tutu said last week in a speech on the eve of World AIDS Day. "People who would have been alive today died needlessly," the Nobel laureate said.
