Election 2020: Meet the three female presidential candidates

Ghana’s much anticipated 2020 elections started on Tuesday, 1 December with the Special Voting exercise – a preserve of security personnel, members of the media, other essential workers and officials of the Electoral Commission, who will be deployed on the day of the elections.

The stakes are high for all involved – the Presidential and Parliamentary aspirants, their respective political parties, and the public in general – as one cannot necessarily predict what the ballot box holds.

Blame it on the upbringing or societal dictates, Ghanaian women from the past for the most part, took to the back seat in matters relating to politics. Preferring instead to allow the men front political campaigns while they supported the political activities financially like the late Rebecca Naa Dedei Ayitey – ‘Dedei Ashikishan’ – of the Convention People’s Party (CPP).

But in recent times, women involvement in politics has increased although the number that actually contest in general elections is still quite few and the country awaits the passage of the Affirmative Action Bill into law.

This 2020 polls present Ghanaian voters – for the first time since the country’s independence in 1957 – with three women on the presidential ballot.

Read on to discover who they are:

Madam Akua Donkor

The founder and leader of Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), Akua Donkor, is one of the 12 presidential candidates who having satisfied all necessary requirements outlined by the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC), will be vying for Ghana’s presidency come 7 December.

The 68-year-old farmer who hails from Afigya Kwabre district in the Ashanti region, started her political career as an Assemblywoman for Herman, later launching her presidential bid in 2011. Her first attempt to claim a spot on the presidential ballot as an independent candidate in 2012, was truncated when she was disqualified from contesting the election by the EC due to irregularities on the registration documents she presented.

Not giving up her presidential ambition, Donkor submitted her documents again in 2016. But 2016 also proved futile as she was disqualified a second time along with 12 other aspirants from contesting the polls.

In spite of all these set-backs, Donkor still aspired to be elected into the highest office of the land. She presented her documents for the third time to the Electoral Commission in 2020, and pleasantly for her, this time her documents were devoid of any irregularities. She was cleared by the EC and finally appears on this year’s presidential ballot paper with position number 5.

Promises to Ghanaians

Akua Donkor says when elected into office, “as I promised from 2012, I will provide free electricity and goods will be cleared at no charge from the port.”

According to her, Ghanaians will enjoy free electricity and ports just like neighboring Togo under her leadership and staff at the port will be paid from national coffers. For Ghana’s crude, she says “the petroleum resource will be extracted and refined in the country, creating more jobs and increasing our foreign exchange earnings.”

Should she win the upcoming elections, Madam Akua Donkor will make history as Ghana’s first female president and the first person without any formal education to become president of Ghana. She contests the presidency with journalist and radio host, Adakabre Frimpong Manso as her running mate.

Brigitte Dzogbenuku

Brigitte Dzogbenuku is contesting the 2020 presidential election on the ticket of the Progressive People’s Party (P.P.P.). Until she was named by Papa Kwasi Nduom – founder of PPP – as his running mate going into the 2016 elections, Dzogbenuku was not actively involved in politics.

She is the founder and executive director of Mentoring Women Ghana (MWG), a nonprofit organization she launched a year after participating in Vital Voices’ Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership in 2008. Her nonprofit includes initiatives like Hoop Sistas, a girls’ basketball club that offers workshops on women’s health and career development.

The PPP flagbearer was General Manager of Aviation Social Centre, a fitness and recreational center in Accra, where she introduced various innovative fitness events and programs. In 2011, she founded a recreational facilities management company, which ran the Barclays Clubhouse until September 2015. She also worked with Ashanti Goldfields Corporation as well as SC Johnson Wax Ghana.

An avid athlete, the former Beauty Queen also coached the Ghanaian Women’s Social Leadership Program between 2014 and 2015 – a Muheres Por Africa / NYU Wagner Institute program. She is a certified Empowerment Trainer and also serves on the school of Languages Management Committee of the University of Ghana.

Dzogbenuku frequently gives presentations on etiquette and manners, and also exercise and wellness to various groups with emphasis on youth. According to her, some of the greatest lessons in leadership are learned on the court.

Dzogbenuku is a columnist at the Graphic Communication Group Limited where she writes for Graphic Mirror under Manners Matter. She attended Wesley Girl’s High School in Cape Coast, and holds a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Ghana, Legon.

Promises to Ghanaians

If voted into power, she says her government will enforce compulsory education from kindergarten to senior high school level.

“Some people say we can’t enforce that. We can. We will ensure you are arrested as a parent for not letting your child go to school. Let’s imagine a Ghana where at least everybody has senior high school education. It will lift the discourse up a whole lot,” she said.

She further promises that her government “will abolish the Basic Education Certificate Examination…there are so many children who drop out because they don’t pass the BECE and they can’t make it to SHS.”

According to her, “we are cutting out a lot of our children with examinations when they can carry on and go to SHS.”

She runs the presidential race with Kofi Asamoah-Siaw, a former operations executive of defunct GN Bank and the first National Secretary of the PPP, as her running mate.

Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings

Nana Konadu is the founder and flagbearer of the National Democratic Party (NDP). She burst onto the political scene briefly as first lady in 1979 following her husband, Rawlings’s first coup and then from 31 December 1981, after his second coup to 7 January 2001, when he left office as a civilian president.

She studied at the University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana; took further courses in London, England; John Hopkins University, Institute for Policy Studies, Baltimore, MD, certificate for program in philanthropy and non-profit organizations.

She became president of the 31^st December Women’s Movement (DWM) in 1982, a position she has held till date. Under her leadership, her movement – two million strong – set up more than 870 pre-schools in Ghana and worked earnestly to stir up interest for the accomplishment of family planning and child development.

Political Memoirs

In 2009, Nana Konadu then 61 years staged a comeback onto the political scene when she won the 1^st Vice Chairpersonship of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). During the NDC congress in Sunyani (July 2011), the former first lady challenged late President Atta-Mills for the flagbearership position but lost to him.

Unrelenting in her decision to be president, Nana Konadu founded the NDP in October 2012 and made history as the first woman to run for Ghana’s presidency when she contested in the 2016 general elections.

She met her future husband late Flt. Lt. J.J Rawlings while studying at the Achimota School and together they have four children; Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, MP of Klottey Korle Constituency, Yaa Asantewaa – a Business Affairs Executive, Amina – a lawyer and Kimathi – an International Negotiator.

She contests the 2020 presidential elections on the ticket of the NDP with Peter Kwame Asamoah as her running mate.

Watch Nana Yaa Mensah’s interview with the former First Lady here.

Nana Abena Boakye-Boateng

* Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online
Follow us on Twitter: @asaaseradio995
#asaaseradio #TVOL #ElectionNerveCentre