"I am not a difficult woman" says Ghana's Nana Rawlings

Written by Patrick Smith 

Jerry and Nana Rawlings

The outcome of the NDC congress on 8-10 July to choose its presidential candidate will shape Ghana’s politics for the next decade. Forthright and convinced she will win, Ghana's former first lady Nana Konadu Rawlings explains why she is challenging President John Atta Mills for the nomination.

You are making history in Ghana as a woman running for the party nomination against an incumbent president. Is this going to be good for your party, the National Democratic Congress, and the country?


Definitely! It’s going to be good for the NDC and very good for Ghana. If you look at the African continent, the women do most of the work. We are moving to an era where the younger people will see that it will be good to have an alternative. The way a woman looks at problems, we look at them differently and we usually do less talking and more action. Because once you can see where the solution is, you don’t have to enter meetings, committees, discussing the same problem.



Some say this contest will weaken and divide the party just a year ahead of elections.


On the contrary, it’s bringing new blood, a new feeling, a new hope into party politics, because the NDC feels that its foundation is being broken. There was a lot of despondency, a lot of people were defecting to opposition parties. Most of the NDC know me, the way I work. They know that I believe in the structures of the party. When I have a target I don’t sit there and say, “Well, I’ll look at it for 20 years or even 20 months.” I get it going.



What are your main criticisms of the John Atta Mills presidency?


It’s a party that holds up a government in a multi-party system. So if you destroy the party that’s supposed to hold you up and make you accountable, then there’s nobody to actually say, “Listen, you’re going off in a direction that is not helping the country.” We are a party that believes in democracy. Today we have a government where the ministers and the deputy ministers who are clapping for the president are saying, “You’re doing well,” yet the grassroots are saying, “You’re not doing well.” It’s like they’re not listening. Things are difficult for our people.



Ghana is classified as a middle-income country; do Ghanaians feel middle class?


We are struggling and striving to become a middle-income country but we’re not there yet. The middle-income group actually drives an economy – not the top, not the bottom. And I can’t see that we have a middle-income group that is big enough to actually drive the country.


How can you bring down the price of food in the cities?


When we made the roads better, when loans were given to individuals who could bring the food to the cities, the middlemen, who were making things so expensive and creating artificial shortages, became irrelevant.