LINDIWE MAZIBUKO | Why politicians turn to God as elections draw near

Dezemba — the uniquely South African festive extravaganza — is finally upon us. Christmas is coming.

In addition to our excitement about the forthcoming month of brilliant warm weather, visits to our home villages and time off from work, we can also expect a December in which a suspicious number of political leaders find themselves eager to talk about God.

Indeed, the twice-annual political pivot to religion, which we will witness again around Easter next year, is a tradition unto itself. One which tends to intensify around election season.

When politicians visit the mosque on Friday and the church on Sunday, you have to wonder: is this conviction or calculation? Across South Africa and the broader Global South, religion remains a formidable political force, capable of mobilising millions, shaping policy debates and determining election outcomes.

But this influence cuts both ways. The same faith that inspired Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s anti-apartheid struggle can also be weaponised to exclude, marginalise and oppress.

According to a 2022 survey by Afrobarometer, 55% of Africans trust religious leaders “a lot” or “somewhat”, compared to just 44% who feel the same way about government officials.

More Africans trust religious leaders than elected officials, and politicians know it. But there is an uncomfortable truth we should nevertheless acknowledge: the line between faith-inspired leadership and religiously fuelled polarisation is thin indeed. And the global rise of right-wing populism could be cutting it thinner still.

A 2023 International Crisis Group report found that over 10,000 people have died in Nigeria in the last decade in violence where religious identity was manipulated for political ends. That same year, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed into law the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 — a bill drafted by American evangelical lobbyists and one of the world’s harshest pieces of legislation criminalising homosexuality, making so-called “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by death.

Tutu showed us religion’s liberating power when he stood in St George’s Cathedral and declared us “the Rainbow People of God”. His faith was integral to his resistance against apartheid.

Tutu showed us religion’s liberating power when he stood in St George’s Cathedral and declared us “the Rainbow People of God”. His faith was integral to his resistance against apartheid.

But the same religious influence that can inspire justice movements can also fuel division, exclusion and violence. Today, religious and political leaders alike invoke that same scripture to justify the persecution of LGBTQ+ citizens.

South Africa’s constitution performs a delicate balancing act in this regard. Section 15 of the constitution guarantees everyone the right to practise their religion or to practise none at all. It also explicitly forbids the state from endorsing or establishing any religion or from discriminating based on religious belief.

In theory, ours is a model framework. In practice, the boundaries get tested constantly. Religious groups lobby against reproductive rights legislation, while politicians attend high-profile religious events to burnish their moral credentials.

But oppression on the basis of faith doesn’t only come from the imposition of religious doctrine on secular people. In China, more than 1-million Uyghur Muslims have been detained in “re-education” camps by the secular state. And in France, laws restricting the use of religious symbols in public have intensified since 2004.

Justified by the principle of laïcité — or secularism — bans on the wearing of the hijab, niquab, burka and abaya in public have rightly drawn criticism from human rights groups and UN experts for targeting Muslim women, stifling religious freedom and stigmatising Islam.

The Oxford academic, Anglican theologian and pastor Bishop Zac Niringiye’s observation that “dialogue is the only way to bridge divides that religion sometimes deepens” sounds almost banal until you consider how rare genuine interfaith dialogue actually is.

Too often what passes for interfaith engagement is either superficial — sharing a stage at a public event — or transactional — co-ordinating on a specific policy issue. Real dialogue requires something harder: creating spaces where people of different faiths (and no faith) can disagree respectfully, where theological differences don’t preclude political co-operation, and where the goal isn’t conversion but coexistence.

And inevitably, when violence erupts, political leaders express shock and call for unity while continuing the very rhetoric that fuelled division in the first place. These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re predictable stages in a well-worn playbook. Recognising the pattern is the first step towards disrupting it.

Religion’s role in politics, especially in Africa and the Global South, is complex and evolving. It’s a powerful force for both unity and division. We must acknowledge that religion can inspire leadership, but also that it can be weaponised, especially in times of political contestation.

The challenge isn’t to eliminate faith from public life; rather, it is to manage its influence so as to serve justice, inclusion and self-determination for all.