TrHer Majesty the Queen had finally dismissed General Niceto Delgado from power. For as long as most could remember, he had governed Iulua with a firm hand. In his place, she had appointed Count Trujillo and he had advised local elections. They would be a chance for the people to express their wishes. In rural areas where local bosses and nobles were still powerful, the day had been carried by conservative leaders. However, in urban areas, it had not gone so easily. The Pact of Santiago, an alliance of left-wing political forces, including liberals, radicals, republicans, socialists, and communists, had won the local elections in a landslide and they had all treated it as a referendum on the queen herself. There was chaos in the streets and police crashed with angry crowds. Several storefronts were set on fire and churches were attacked. The anger against the church was the most striking thing that night. It had seemed a mainstay of Iuluan society since time immemorial but many Iuluans viewed it as a bulwark of oppressive, reactionary government. While Count Trujillo called for order, some soldiers broke ranks and marched through the strets under the banner of the Republic of Trujillo.
The popular, fashionable young socialist, Maria Mendoza addressed crowds of workers and students in Santiago. "The people of Iulua have spoken tonight and they have spoken for a new world, one where the workers who create the wealth are entitled to the fruits of their labor, one where the people are governed by their own representatives, one where ossified, dead wealth of capital no longer rules like a vampire over living men and women. We have voted for a world without kings and priests and the millennia of oppression our people have known. We voted to be free. Those were merely municipal elections and where the bosses still crookedly held the levers of power in their hands they went to the same old corrupt powers that have always reigned. But the people voted for a republic and I declare today the Republic of Iulua." There was no legal force to this proclamation from a woman just elected to the Santiago City Council but the crowd went wild. There was no containing them. The Queen had not appeared all day.
