Ruination of the Sun

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Over the course of a week and a half, from the remaining days of the campaign period up to just before the declaration of the winner of the presidential election, two incidents took place in quick succession which would further tip the scales in favor of the opposition - those armed and those who were not.

The first occurred on Dosa 25 in the city of Taguan. The provincial capital of one of the government's last remaining bastions in Eastern Mayari, Taguan would be the sight of an explosion killing ten Mayar citizens.

It happened in the afternoon of that Wednesday. The local Daeinist congregation had arranged a simple gathering paying tribute to Ellis Huerta, a twenty year-old native and the then chairperson of the Sangguniang Kabataan or municipal youth council. Aside from this, she was prominent as an activist clamoring for the release of fellow youth leaders arrested during Hidalgo's final years.

Huerta had died five years ago, when she was killed in an alleged encounter with the military while participating in an immersion with the rural poor organized by the National Union of Students of Mayari. Her body mutilated and discovered dumped in a lake, Huerta would be martyred by the MPDM and CPM as a young advocate of national transformation who gave her life for the people. The military denied involvement, but nonetheless decried the dead activist as a mere rabble-rouser misguided by her ideals, a Red fighter of the CPM-MPRA. That had always been the narrative of the military, the police, and indeed the entire government when pressed about the cases of youth critics disappearing, resurfacing as dead, or being thrown in a cell.

The congregation's gathering was not at all a very formal one and was supposed to be a small event, held in front of the slain girl's home. Yet it attracted more people than imagined, ranging from comrades in the NUSM to former classmates and their families. Further leading to this was the fact that the Daeinist Bishops Conference of Mayari were staunch critics of Martial Law, and many of its prominent figures preached for vigilance and resistance against tyranny in all its forms.

At any rate, the laying of flowers and handwritten messages amidst prayers would be disturbed by the alarm of a vehicle going off just outside the home. The parents and uncle of Huerta would be the first victims, as they were the ones to check the vehicle - which exploded in a fiery detonation after just five seconds. The strength of the explosion tore apart the gate and entrance to the small home, and would count among its victims a couple more people. Numerous people were also injured.

The explosion was pinned on the military quickly by the MPDM, which denounced it as an act of retribution. The denial naturally came, but the failure to quickly produce investigation results meant that absolving of blame would be nigh impossible. For its part, the military described the incident as an orchestration of the CPM-MPRA, just days before the election, as a political stunt.

The leadership of the Communist Party of Mayari wasted no time responding, ending its congress earlier than expected and announcing the resumption of the civil war. They were quick to likewise rebut the accusation thrown at them, and instead echoed the MPDM's assertion that it was an act of vindication.

This was the second incident marking the short frame of time leading up to the proclamation of the winner.

On Dosa 27, the final day of the campaign season, agents of the CPM would lead an uprising in a naval facility in Roligge Shoal, off the coast of northern Mayari. Roligge Shoal was one of but few ports of the minuscule Mayari navy, and held strategic significance for the country's defense. It was the home of three destroyers of the military's maritime branch, plus a larger number of smaller craft used mainly for brown water operations.

All of those assets would be lost as the naval facility fell to the mass of dock workers and contractors, joined by a considerable portion of those assets' crews, and organized by veteran cadres of the party inserted there a long time ago. They were joined by the MPRA's red fighters lying in wait just outside and near the coast, overpowering the facility's defenders after a day-long engagement.

In the south of the country, frozen battle lines were awakened as the Mayari Peasant's Revolutionary Army undertook a general offensive in several provinces. In these zones of conflict, the MPRA nonetheless ensured that there was no indiscriminate violence taking place; its cadres always maintained the relocation and, if not possible, protection of civilians caught in the crossfire. The leadership of the CPM had long maintained the party as a belligerent to a civil conflict and not as a simple insurgency, and thus sought to abide by international conventions on the conduct of war. This was part of its long-term strategy to make diplomatic recognition easier in the future, when Larrazabal has been taken and the war won.

No significant progress would be had by these offensives over the next couple of days, but this was not the primary aim of the CPM. And neither was it too assist the electoral campaign of Pepe De Vera. If the cards were played properly, then there would be no need to rely on the election - something which many of the CPM's leaders knew in the first place anyway.