JOHANNESBURG - AIDS has driven a wedge between the leadership and rank-and-file of the ruling African National Congress, with top officials accused of ignorance and activists aghast at the government's handling of the pandemic.
South African President Thabo Mbeki and his former deputy, Jacob Zuma, who will battle each other for the presidency of the ANC at a leadership conference later this month, have both been burned politically by the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Mbeki drew sharp criticism shortly after coming to power in 1999 when he questioned accepted AIDS science and failed to make life-saving anti-retroviral drugs widely available in a nation where some 365,000 people die annually from the disease.
Zuma, who once led South Africa's national AIDS council, added to the party's grief when he testified in his 2006 rape trial that he had showered to protect himself from the disease after having sex with his HIV-positive female accuser.
The Zulu politician, who leads Mbeki in local branch nominations for the ANC presidency, was acquitted of rape but, like Mbeki, thrashed in the court of public opinion for poor judgement and a lack of awareness on AIDS.
"Mr. Zuma has a lot to prove to demonstrate that he is committed. In President Mbeki's case there is little he can do to resurrect the disaster he has created," said Nathan Geffen, a spokesman for the Treatment Action Campaign, a South African group campaigning for the rights of people with HIV/AIDS.
ZIG-ZAG APPROACH
There are fears South Africa, still viewed as a late and reluctant convert in the AIDS war, could continue on a zig-zag track with either Mbeki, who is vying for a third term as ANC leader, or Zuma at the helm.
The best hope for a radical break with the past could come in the form of a compromise candidate, such as ANC activist-turned-tycoon Tokyo Sexwale, who is board chairman of LoveLife, a national HIV prevention programme for youth.
"When there is a fire, you put it out. You don't argue about what causes the fire, you don't first discuss the theory of combustion," Sexwale told the Cape Town Press Club in an Oct. 25 speech that was widely seen as an attack on Mbeki's AIDS policy.
