Eastern European voters are more likely to care about candidates' religious beliefs, study finds

A new study of 35 countries shows that the religious orientation of political leaders still matters a lot to European voters — and its findings reveal an apparent divide across the continent.

The Pew Research Centre asked voters around the world if it's important that their leader shares their own religious beliefs. In several European countries, more than half of voters said yes: in Poland, the figure was 52%, in Greece it was 42%, and in Hungary it was 40%.

The numbers in western and northern Europe, however, are much lower.

Right at the bottom is the Netherlands, where only 15% of respondents care that their leader shares their religion. Among the other electorates taking a laissez-faire view are France (17%), Spain (18%), the UK (22%) and Germany (23%).

Among Europe's biggest economies, Italy stands out with a figure of 30%.

According to Pew, around 84% of the world's people are affiliated with specific religions, and that number is expected to grow to 87.6% by 2060.

The countries where the link between religion and politics seems strongest are in Asia, with Bangladesh (91%), Indonesia (90%) and others at the top of the ranking, followed by several African countries.

Right and left

"We see in the United States that often people's religious identities or religious practices are tied to their political views or their political identity, and we see this elsewhere in the world", Pew's senior researcher Jonathan Evans tells Euronews.

"We found that there's a divide on several things between eastern and western Europe, and we found people in eastern Europe are more likely to hold some of these religious views saying that religion is very important in their life."

He added that "people on the ideological right are more likely than those on the left, or the centre, to say that religious beliefs and attributes of their leader are important."

"People who identify with the right end of the political spectrum are more likely to say things such as: 'It's important for my leader to have religious beliefs that are the same as mine or have strong religious beliefs, even if they differ from my own,'" Evans said.

"While this isn't necessarily true in every single country, there is a broad pattern that we do see."