As Ghana mourns president, focus turns to election race

Ghana has seen a smooth transition of power after the sudden death of its president, but as the nation mourns attention is already turning to who will replace him as the ruling party’s candidate in a December vote. Vice-President John Dramani Mahama was sworn in hours after the announcement of the death through sudden illness on Tuesday of 68-year-old President John Atta Mills. This ensured that the West African oil, gold and cocoa producer, a former British colony once known as the Gold Coast, avoided the kind of messy political transitions that have plagued other states in a coup-prone region. Ghanaians congratulated themselves on the seamless handover. Mahama, 53, a historian, former minister and communications expert, is expected to bring a steady hand to a fast-growing economy, one of Africa’s newest oil producers. But questions over who will now step into Mills’ shoes as the candidate to keep his governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in power in December’s elections will inject some uncertainty into the political outlook. Analysts say this could drive down the Ghanaian currency, which has lost about 17 percent against the dollar this year as the country’s oil-fuelled boom sucks in capital and consumer imports and drives up demand for dollars to pay for them. Traders said the cedi was relatively stable on Wednesday at 1.9550/1.9600 to the dollar. “Political disruption is likely to be internal and will focus on who is the NDC’s presidential nominee,” said Azim Datardina, Ghana analyst at Africa Risk Consulting.