Maple­croft has, as usual, pro­vided timely analy­sis of the events in Ghana.  I def­i­nitely sug­gest check­ing out their analy­sis since it’s a) thor­ough; and b) it’s free!  Here’s the takeaway:

The death of Mills throws the com­pe­ti­tion for power at the Decem­ber 2012 elec­tions wide open, in a con­test which will be intensely fought due to surg­ing oil rev­enues. Ghana effec­tively has a two-party polit­i­cal sys­tem with the rul­ing National Demo­c­ra­tic Con­gress (NDC) and the oppo­si­tion National Patri­otic Party (NPP) enjoy­ing very sim­i­lar lev­els of sup­port. In the Decem­ber 2008 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, Mills defeated the NPP can­di­date, Nana Akufo-Addo, with a very nar­row major­ity (50.35% of the vote). Prior to the death of Mills, it was antic­i­pated that the result of the 2012 would be equally close, although the stakes will be much higher. The antic­i­pated increase in rev­enue from oil pro­duc­tion in the next elec­toral term will grant the win­ning party sig­nif­i­cantly enhanced pow­ers of patron­age, poten­tially allow­ing them to cement their posi­tion in power. This is likely to con­tinue to gen­er­ate polit­i­cal ten­sions. (Maple­croft)