So does South Africa's likely-president-in-waiting really believe that taking a shower can prevent AIDS? No, says Jacob Zuma, the controversial choice to succeed President Thabo Mbeki as leader of his country's ruling African National Congress (ANC). Zuma's election as ANC head last month makes him an apparent shoo-in to take over the national presidency when Mbeki's term in expires in 2009--provided Zuma isn't first convicted on possible criminal charges arising from a long running local corruption scandal.

Zuma, though, is best remembered for his infamous shower comment during a previous brush with the courts: when he faced a charge of raping a young HIV-positive woman who said she'd considered him her mentor. Zuma said the sex was consensual and was acquitted of rape, but his remark about a post-coital shower has continued to haunt him in a nation afflicted by one of the world's highest HIV infection rates. Today, though, Zuma told an informal "media coffee" at the Rinaldi Hotel that his quote had been taken out of context after a series of persistent questions from the prosecution about what had happened when. "I'm aware that during the trial--the rape trial--I gave a particular answer in passing," he said. "People picked up on one element of it, the issue of the shower. They put it as if I said that a shower cures AIDS. I never said so." 

According to Zuma, the South African government--long criticized for Mbeki's initial skepticism about whether HIV caused AIDS and his subsequent slowness in responding to the HIV pandemic--has effective initiatives in place to combat the spread of HIV. "Our policy on AIDS has been undermined by the politicization of AIDS," he said. And is he concerned that the possibility of an upcoming brush with the courts could cost him the leadership of the country? "The legal problems are there; they've got to be dealt with," he said. "[But] charges do not mean you are guilty."