Although I was now in great shape for a space race win, I also had the possibility of a quick diplomatic exit. This time, there wasn't a danger of instant loss as I had more than 40% of world population all by myself. (I manually counted up every city to be sure.) Also, Mass Media would trade to Mansa for Artillery, so I wouldn't lose any time on the space race by diverting.
Problem was, I needed Frederick's vote, but he would be my opponent. He'd edged ahead of Mansa in population. I doubted I could get Mansa's vote - we had too many diplomatic disagreements from refused demands for war help. Frederick I could get on my side by paying him to convert to Hinduism. (I'd been unable to spread Hinduism to Mali with them in Theocracy while fighting Greece.)
So now I canceled all my resource deals with Frederick, and sent all the resources at my disposal to Mansa, in hopes that I could get Mansa to grow his population ahead of Frederick.
And Madras now finally popped something other than a Great Artist - a Merchant - who started the Golden Age to speed the UN.
The secretarial election came as the UN completed, and I did indeed have enough to vote myself in.
Unfortunately, Frederick had kept conquering Greece and was now far ahead of Mansa's population. So much for that resource silliness.
Well, if I'm running against Frederick, I need to get Mansa's vote. Somehow most of our attitude minuses had disappeared, so all I needed to do was change to Free Religion and boom, Mansa was Friendly. Problem is that losing Hinduism would lose me Cyrus's vote (he'd only be +7), and it's REALLY close as to whether me plus Mansa is enough for 60%.
Here we go!
C'mon Mansa, I love ya baby. I need 112 votes, and you had 114 last election. You're at +12 relations with me and only +10 with Frederick. What do ya say?
What? No!
+12 with me is more than +10 with Frederick! WTF?
(BTW, what's up with Mansa both getting Stone from Frederick and trading Stone to Frederick? How did that happen? I think these guys have been swapping their rocks a bit too much, if you know what I mean...)
Anyway, there's no way I can break up that pairing. Neither would entertain any suggestion of even canceling deals with the other, never mind actual war.
The biggest factor from Mansa to Frederick is +5 for Mansa's favorite civic, Free Market. Problem is I need Mansa's favorite civic approval too. To break that up, I'd need to 1) revolt to Mercantilism myself, 2) bribe Frederick to adopt it, and 3) revolt back to Free Market. That's four turns of anarchy, plus a chance that Fred might not be receptive to the civics bribe. Too risky and too high a price in a close space race.
So how in the world can I get Mansa to like me better? I've already maxed out "fair and forthright", "you supplied us resources", "Open Borders", and everything else. I thought to use Cyrus as a rogue state to get more "mutual military struggle" with Mansa, but Mansa declined that offer too.
Well, I guess it's on to space then, though we'll keep trying elections.