South Africa: Bishop Rodrigues calls for peaceful and fair elections

Sheila Pires – Pretoria.

In a conversation with the SACBC communication office Bishop João Noé Rodrigues of Tzaneen Diocese said the highly contested seventh general elections after 30 years of democracy “are important in the sense that it gives the people of South Africa the opportunity to take a critical look at how far we’ve gone, what we’ve done well, where we’ve lost it and what it is that we can do, so this election therefore allows us to be able to correct that.”

Reiterating the Catholic Bishops’ call for “peaceful, free and fair transparent” elections, Bishop Rodrigues commended the SACBC Justice and Peace Commission (JP) for collaborating with the Moral Regeneration Movement (MRM) in promoting Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and voter education workshops.

The power of young voters

The chairperson of the MRM says young people who make up the vast majority of eligible voters for South Africa’s seventh general elections play a crucial role as their vote carries a “lot of potential, of power to be able to influence the process, for better or for worse, hopefully for better.”

“Secondly,” Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa said, “what it also means is that unless people go out in their numbers to cast their vote, to express their wish, their aspirations, their hope for the future of this country to give a clear mandate to whoever, whatever political parties takes charge, and so on. Unless that is recognized, then our election process may not yield the kind of results that we hope for.”

A call for eligible voters to cast their vote

In their February 2024 collective Pastoral Letter signed by the SACBC President Bishop Sithembele Sipuka, the Bishops “strongly appeal to all eligible voters to go out and vote and send a message to incoming parliamentarians.”

“Nobody should remain at home,” they affirm, and add, “For the good of the country, vote according to your experience and your conscience, not according to unquestioning loyalty to one or another political party. Consider what is important for the whole nation, not just what is good for you personally, your political party, and its alliance partners.”