“We believers know that Jesus will come back, we say the ANC will rule until he comes back,” Zuma, who is likely to be the next president, told ANC supporters in the Mpumalanga province.

He said church leaders must persuade believers to vote for the ANC. “When priests pray for poverty to end and for development, then it means God agrees with the ANC because the ANC stands for those things,” Zuma said.

“When you preach in your churches, just explain to the congregation – in a paragraph – about the ANC. People who love God must not play with their votes, they must vote for the ANC,” said Zuma.

He added: "We in the ANC know God. When the ANC was born, it was baptized. We have respect, we are beautiful, and we conduct ourselves in a good way."

Zuma, a polygamist married to two women and engaged to a third, was acquitted of rape in 2006, but admitted to having unprotected sex with his HIV-positive accuser.

Zuma, who before the rape trial headed the South African National AIDS Council, said in court that he took a shower to minimize the risk of infection. He claimed that he could tell by the way a woman sat whether she wanted to have sex with him and that his Zulu culture demanded he should oblige her.

He currently faces charges of corruption, money-laundering, racketeering, and fraud stemming from a $5 billion arms deal from 1999. If elected in April, he is expected to spend most of his first year as president in court.

In a month, South Africans will go to the polls to decide who leads them for the next political term.