Thinking about how Ishgard isn't a full democracy if the house of lords still seems to be the final word over the house of commons, since Aymeric is still seen as the leader of Ishgard. There's no separate figurehead, or a joint weighting between the two houses. He's also still head of the army as far as I can tell, and informally carries a lot of weight with decisions on the future of the church that people are just giving him because they like him.

Then I started thinking about if there was a full election for a head of state, the guy who's been putting in the effort with the Firmament and redoing the Brume is Francel. So it would probably be a bitter run off between him and Hilda after Aymeric got knocked out because he's probably still wildly contentious with the lower classes and even if they're not quite in the mood to stab him any more, it's not like he's the perfect candidate for ALL of ishgard. Sometimes that's just how it is when you bring about dramatic change to a place, and he hopefully doesn't have the dictator instinct to claw at the power that opportunity gave him while he earnestly meant well and he deserved it as a liberator and change maker.

Anyway I'm a nerd so I'm thinking about their political campaigns.