Background1
There is a common assumption that the Apostolic churches, the “Vapostori”, represent a
“captured” constituency for ZANU-PF when it comes to elections.2 This is undoubtedly a story
with some truth to it, but rarely examined in any analytical fashion. The assumption probably
derives some support from the notion that the Apostolic churches take their support from a
largely rural population as well as from the poorer sections of Zimbabwean society. However,
all of these are assumptions when it comes to politics and elections.
According to the Inter-Censal Demographic Survey (ICDS 2017), 84% of Zimbabweans are
Christian. Of these, 34% over 15 years are reported to be Apostolic, 20% are Pentecostal and
16% are Protestant. Of the remaining 30%, 8% were Catholic, 5% followed traditional religion,
and the remaining 17% were distributed through other small religions, with 10% stating no
religious affiliation. Clearly Apostolics are the largest religious group and, if partisan affiliated,
can have a significant effect on the outcome of an election.
Table 1: Percent distribution of Apostolics versus other religions by Province,
[Source: Zimbabwe ICDS 2017]
Province
Manicaland
Mashonaland Central
Mashonaland East
Mashonaland West
Matabeleland North
Matabeleland South
Midlands
Masvingo
Harare
Bulawayo
Total:
Apostolics
(Nos.)
437827
389176
317822
329463
146134
181347
270853
294336
273210
95192
2735360
Other
religions
(Nos.)
612117
447762
495834
590824
262470
292145
614288
576481
1038986
406321
5337227
Apostolic
(Mean per
Province)
42%
46%
39%
36%
36%
38%
31%
34%
21%
19%
34%
Other religions
(Mean per
Province)
58%
54%
61%
64%
63%
62%
69%
66%
79%
81%
66%
Since we are concerned with the contribution of Apostolics and their possible participation in
politics and elections, we re-classified the ICDS data into two groups: Apostolics and combined
all other religions, including those that they stated “none”.
This first issue is tighten up the understanding of religious affiliation. According to the
Afrobarometer Round 7 (2017), 12.2% of the respondents reported being affiliated to an
Apostolic church, with is considerable lower than the ICDS estimate, and the rank orders of
frequencies of Apostolics per Province between the two data sets are negatively related (see
Table 2 over). This provides a problem in any comparison using the Afrobarometer data. It
should be noted that the ICDS questionnaire offers only nine choices for religious affiliation
whereas the Afrobarometer offers 23, with “Apostolic” as only one. Thus, it is possible that the
ICDS tends to be over-inclusive about Apostolic affiliation in comparison with the
1
RAU and MPOI gratefully acknowledge permission from the Afrobarometer for the use of the 2017 data base.
ED will win elections: Vapostori. NewsDay. 24 May 2018. [https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/05/ed-will-winelections-vapostori/]
2
2