PROGRESS AT LAST...
Thanks to the free trial of RationalPurify (a code bug finding thing) I fixed some pesky bugs in democracy. I also added the text for the event start/end messages, and the game is kinda playable (albeit sparse and unfinished)
I played for 10 minutes and...
Its great! My country had a problem with high tax evasion and a thriving black market. I figured that if I could get taxes low enough, these problems would be fixed and my total tax take would actually be better, so I cut taxes, and to balance the books, I cut spending, mainly in law enforcement.
So my tax problems were resolved, and the books looked good, I scraped through the first election, but my earlier spending cuts on law enforcement had created their own problems. I now had riots in the streets, vandalism and antisocial behaviour and my conservative voters were deserting me...
This is exactly the kind of complex balancing act I wanted my game to be, and I can see it has real potential. Hurrah!

Also saw the film 'Hero' today. A chinese film with subtitles, similar to Crouching Tiger... but WAY better. GO SEE IT!