10.1 - Elections

By: Lachrymologist    Read Original Post: Cafe Tropico Game Guide: Elections

Every 5-10 years on Tropico, your people will call for an election.  One year before the election, Ricardo will give you a warning of what's to come.  A year after that you get to decide whether or not to hold an election.  

Refusing to hold an election will result in decreased respect, liberty and happiness for your people.  Without the option of expressing their opinions through the ballot box, your people will be more likely to become rebels, stage an uprising or an even open rebellion.  With all the negative effects of not holding an election, it is generally a good idea to hold them when called and concentrate on winning.  Skipping one won't bury you completely, especially if you are the kind of dictator that doesn't concern himself with his people's liberty.  But, continuously denying elections will undoubtedly lead to a revolt.  Obviously if you've selected the Free Elections Special Circumstance, you won't have a choice in this matter.

Once you've agreed to an election, your opponent will be announced. You'll have 12 months to try to right the perceived wrongs of your administration and garner enough support to ensure your illustrious rule will continue.  In order to win the election, you'll need to secure 51% of the popular vote.  All citizens Age 13 or higher, including foreign born immigrants, will have a vote in the election.  Should you lose, you'll be expelled to a rowboat without a trip to the scoring page.  With this in mind, you'll want to be well aware of what you can do to tilt the scales in your favor.

During an election year, a small graph in the circle window will appear showing election support.  (Hit escape if you don't see this)  Votes for El Presidente are represented in green while votes for your opponent are shown in red.  The further away from the center of the graph, the stronger the support for the candidate.  The bars in the middle of the graph represent voters that only have slight support one way or the other.  These are the 'swing' votes and your most likely converts.

How Tropicans Decide?

A Tropican's support is based on a several factors.  Respect and Happiness are the most important.  What faction your opponent belongs to (or even leads) will also influence voters.  Those with like views will be inclined to vote against you, in spite of high respect and happiness ratings.

Pre-Election Tactics:

If you are concerned with your position, the warning from Ricardo 2 years in advance, should serve as your signal to switch into election mode.  Find out what your people are lacking and try to correct it.  Housing and Human Services can normally be up and running by the time the election rolls around if you position them near construction offices and set them to high priority.  Since Happiness is a large factor, a few points gained by new buildings can really help.

This is also the time to scout out potential opponents with high leadership scores. You then have two options, either do all you can to make them happy so they may not run against you, or eliminate or jail them so they cannot run against you. More on these tactics later.

Media Propaganda:

The media can be used to help influence the vote.  Radio Stations can be set to All Presidente, All Day or Radio Free Tropico to increase Respect or Liberty ratings.  TV Studios can run Your Government, Your Friend or BBC for similar effects.

Newspaper offices increase respect in a faction and also increase a factions members.  If your opponent is the head of the Religious Faction and the faction respect for you is low, do not print The Word Of God.  Printing the news of a faction you are well respected in will help sway peoples opinions.  Likewise, changing from Coupons to any faction other than the one your opponent believes strongly in will help as well.

For a more detailed explanation of the effects of media, refer to the Media section of the Cafe Tropico
Game Guide.

Use Your Immigration Office:

Selecting the Love It or Leave It option at your immigration office will send the 10-15% of your population with the lowest respect for you off the island. If they're not there, they cannot vote against you, so this is a good way to turn around a losing vote.

Another effect of immigration that you can do either after the above or simultaneously, is to make sure that Open-Door Immigration or Skilled Workers Welcome is turned on just before the arrival of a freighter and the new immigrants will most likely be happy to be getting new jobs and will support you.

Election Time Edicts:

Edicts are your best tool for increasing your election support.  If you've got the money and the right infrastructure, you should be able to win despite a poor inital showing.

One of the most obvious edicts to consider for elections is the Early Elections edict. This may increase your Tropican's liberty and respect ratings by 1-2 points but will also increase their democracy expectation, so be careful if you don't want to get their hopes up. At $2,000, it is fairly expensive for the dubious benefits though. And it must be issued before the election is actually called so takes some pre-planning. But it may be a good option if circumstances are right at the time.

Issuing the Food for the People Edict will cost you $500 and double the amount of food your citizens consume.  If you have enough food to cover the year, you can expect Food Quality to increase 6-10 pts.  The increase in Food Quality can result in a 1-2 point Happiness gain.  As long as your people aren't starving, this is a good edict to issue.  Be warned that if your economy is strongly based on exporting edible foods, this edict could slow down your income stream.

If you've constructed a pub and have $3,000, Mardis Gras is an excellent edict to increase your election support.  Unlike the Food for the People edict, which requires a few years to mature, the full effects of a Mardi Gras will be realized during the first year.  Your citizens Entertainment Rating will increase by 9-12 pts, increasing overall happiness and respect.

If you are fortunate enough to have a nightclub, you can spend $5,000 on The Headliner edict.  The result is a modest gain in entertainment of 4-6 pts.  

For a cost of $200 ($100 each year of the edict) per voting age citizen, you can buy respect temporarily. A Tax Cut will raise your Overall Respect by 7-10 pts.

If you have built a Sports Arena, you can issue the Pan-Caribbean Games edict.  For a price of $7,500 your entertainment rating will increase 8-10 points.  Unfortunately this edict can only be used once.

Finally,  the one time only Papal Visit will increase your citizens Religion Rating 15-20 pts.  Use of this edict is an extreme measure and is best saved for end game use in games where Happiness affects score.  You'll need a Cathedral and Cordial or better respect in the religious faction to issue this edict.

Edict Effects Edict Result Cost Happiness Gain Early Elections Liberty, Respect up 1-2 $2,000 0-1 Food for the People Food Rating up 6-10 $500 + food 1-2 Mardi Gras Entertainment Rating up 9-12 $3,000 1-2 The Headliner Entertainment Rating up 4-6 $5,000 0-1 Tax Cut Increase Respect 7-10 pts $200/VC 1-2 Pan-Caribbean Games (1) Entertainment Rating up 8-10 $7,500 1-2 Papal Visit (1) Religion Rating up 15-20 pts $10,000 2-3

Money Talks:

If you've got the cash, you can give workers a raise to help buy their vote.  Use <Cntrl> in the worker screen to change the pay of all workers in that education class (Uneducated, High School, College).  A good strategy is to time your normal raises with election years.  Job quality will increase and you will gain a small amount of respect as a result.

If you have a bank, you can issue a bribe for $1,000.  This costly method can radically shift the individual voters position.  Due to the high price tag and low return, this method is largely ineffective.

The Dark Side:

Sadly there is only 1 under handed tactic that can be used to help keep you in power.  A month before the election, you'll be given the choice to have the votes counted ethically, or to have the odds shifted in your favor.  You'll be able to sway up to 20% of the votes ,30% if you Bought The Election to rise to power.  This unfortunately will result in a loss of liberty and respect among your people.  Another unfavorable side effect is a reduction in Democratic Satisfaction.

Other tactics are not effective and overall decrease your chance of winning the election.  If you arrest your opponent, they will continue to run against you from the jail with increased support.  Branding them a heretic will not stop the election and will also increase support for your opponent.  Should you decide to Eliminate the opposing candidate, someone will immediately replace them with increased support.

But What Does It Mean, Basil?

If you can't win the election honestly, it's not really worth it to spend money trying to increase support.  You'll need the money to worry about the ramifications of the "Florida Syndrome".  As long as you can carry 31% on the vote, you'll be able to buy the other 20% (21% if you Bought the Election).    If the Election doesn't look like a landslide loss or you don't have a commanding lead, you should take action to improve your position.

Mardis Gras, The Headliner and a Tax Cut all take effect immediately and can be "saved" till 6 months or so into the election.  To receive the full effect of the Food For The People Edict, you should issue it when Ricardo first tells you "some of your people are calling for an election next year".  If you've got the food, by election time, Food Quality will have risen 12-24 pts.  If you don't have massive food reserves, you can still issue it as soon as your opponent is announced for a modest gain.  

The Papal Visit and Pan-American Games Edicts should be used as weapons of last resort.  Since you can only use them once, it's best to save them for near end game use.  Periodic raises are a good idea and you should time them to coincide with election years.  

With all that can be done, to influence elections, a savvy President will never lose one.  Winston Churchill once said, "The strongest argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter."  I'm inclined to agree with him.

My Take on Elections

Not Just another Obstacle

First of all, I've noticed that a lot of people view election time on Tropico as another obstacle to overcome.  Simply put, it's not just another obstacle.  Although your fate will indeed ultimately be decided at the ballot box (either by your voters or your 'observers'), there are several steps you can take long before an election to ensure success and another six (or so) years of oppression on Tropico.

Divide and Conquer

You've probably heard many an argument about whether capitalism or communism should be given greater preference.  There are, however, several ways to diversify your island's economy to please the capitalists while simultaneously maintaining control of things so as to please the communists and, to some extent, the militarists.

Don't Kill Your Opponent

Don't kill your opponent.  See what kind of person s/he is.  If your opponent is an environmentalist, issue edicts and implement policies to satisfy environmentalists, thereby weakening one of your opponent's primary voting bases.  If your opponent is the leader of the capitalist faction, kick industry into full gear and watch the vote shift.

Intentionally Create Manageable Problems

This might sound insane, but it has worked for me in quite a number of situations.  If you can deliberately cause a certain dilemma on your island, i.e. religious disappointment or slightly low (but not too low) morale in the military, then you can easily resolve matters and please Tropicans at the same time.  It is also a good idea to put your economy into an intentional slump by slashing grassroots activities such as farming (tobacco and sugar, specifically), ordering a tax cut, and turning the lights back on in the barnyard.

Don't Fix Them Unless Necessary

If your voting base is, at the time the 'observers' offer their services via Ricardo, discernably leaning toward your side of the fence (at least 55% if you have a significant base of "strong" supporters, at least 65% if you have a significant base of "swing" voters), then don't fix the elections.  In fact, fixing the elections of 1956 may very well cause you to lose in '62 in the end.  Simply put, play it safe, but play it fairly clean.  If you can do both, simultaneously, then you can't lose.

Elections? I don't need no Steenkin' Elections!

I would like to offer the following as an alternative to having free elections.  I have found it easier in many ways, after a few hurdles at the beginning, to hold NO elections. I'm not convinced that elections are a better way to go than not having them at all, presuming that your selected character has a low or nil democracy expectation.  Your biggest problem early game will be keeping the U.S. off your back, and there are various ways to do this that I have discussed and seen discussed in different threads.

The keys to true dictatorship I find are:

Get a diplomatic ministry PRONTO.  If you don't start with the diplomat option (giving you a free diplomatic ministry), buy one soon, or the US will harass you and possibly invade before you ever have the chance to rule oppressively. You may or may not have to ally with Russia to keep the US gunboats from coming to your island.  Naturally, not allying with either side is optimal.  Setting the ministry to Neutral Policies (or pro US if you are really in trouble) option can help from having to ally with Russia.  If you do ally with Russia, you will have a Russian gunboat late game as your island has become rich enough to be more appealing to capitalism.

Compared to getting past US aggression and gunboat policy, staying in power while never holding elections is a piece of cake!  Keep your population relatively happy with housing and pay. The latter can't be stressed enough.  Consistently paying your populace over and above the Caribbean average will make them very tolerant of you and your regime!  Build a big economy as fast as possible, while keeping your people as happy as possible without going out on a limb too much financially. Always be on the lookout for troublemakers in your military and keep them large and happy.  Keeping your military purged is always a good idea anyway.  

If your population begins to become unruly, as soon as you can afford it build an armory so you can issue the martial law edict. You can issue the edict without ever hiring the first general. Police and Prison can help with keeping the rabble in line, but their presence alone can actually make your situation worse instead of better.

Increasing Liberty

When you get a college, enact the sensitivity edict.  Build at least two newspapers and you will have "free pess" which will increase liberty scores.  Naturally this can also be increased later with radio and television, etc.  Radio Free Tropico and BBC will give your citzenry a high enough liberty rating you may never need to hold an election again.  Watch the placement of your radio and TV stations though.  You want them placed where they can affect the most Tropicans!

Pleasing the Capitalists

When you are big enough you can start factories and tourism.  When you can afford and have  built a bank or two, the capitalists (and therefore the US stance) will begin to change towards you. Usually by this time in the game, even if you decided to change courses and have free elections, you would win by a landslide because your population will love you.  You don't have to though.  

It's worth mentioning that I try to keep the environmentalist and religious factions as happy as possible. I have used this successfully, never having had an election. It is hardest using a character without the diplomat option. Obviously it is hard to afford both the diplomatic ministry, get it staffed and running long enough to make a difference and do it all in time before you may be invaded in the very early game. It is wise to save often early game because of the threat of US invasion.  


I have tested this successfully at all the levels (easy/easy moderate/moderate hard/hard and whatever the most difficult one is called) except sandbox - (would you believe?!).

I have invested many hours of play time (and enjoyed it), proving this strategy to myself just because it was how I chose to play the game.

If you are running an oppressive regime, perhaps by starting off with low expectations of free/fair elections, for the love of God don't start holding elections to please the people. In fact I am a strong believer in denying or rigging an election whenever possible. The reason?

Well if you look in the Almanac you will see that people have both democratic expectation and satisfaction scores. If a player starts holding too many free elections then their expectations (and of course satisfaction) rises, thus meaning they will demand and expect a free election next time. when this is cancelled or rigged they will even more furious than if you had just bumped them along on a low score such as satisfactory (by denying and rigging most elections).

Give em' your hand and they'll take your arm off! Therefore feel free to hold the first election or even the second, but rig it if need be. By the mid 60's you'd be a fool not to have at least a few TV and Radio Stations up. After that, as Peron points out, you'll never need to show your peons a ballot box again, as they'll fall for your propoganda every time.  

As Anastasio Somoza Garcia, who's family ruled Nicaragua for 43 years said, "My people may have their elections and cast their votes, but I'm the one who'll be counting em'!"   You've gotta love that guy!