The idea has crossed my mind for some time now and spoke about it to a person or two. But it would be profitable to really bring the suggestion out here and ask for everyone to lend their thoughts about it:

What if Hathian really had a political system? With mayors, politicians responsible for specific departments (health, safety, crime, urbanism, etc, etc), a City Council and, most important of all, elections?

This means that we would have a lot of Roleplayers commiting to politics as a part-time at the City Council, a small number of RP'ers that would play the main Office roles (Mayor, for example) permanently for some time (for example, one or two months) until further elections or, of course, if they gave up their office on account of personal reason, of threats or - and this would be interesting - big political scandals.

Last but not least, and although just some could hold office for the time they were elected for, I think this could bring EVERYONE into the RP, either running for office, supporting the main runners, trying to act as a lobby for a specific candidate and, above all, by exercising their civic right of voting.

In the end, there is always space for crime within politics, starting with campaign contributions from certain gangs - which could give them an interesting protection "from above" until investigated -, dealing with personal drug problems in a Mayor (for example) or trying to influence how either the Police Department works, or the Hospital and so on and so on.

We can't forget what the Crack Den, after all, is about as a Sim: a theme park for crime. And who is historically better in making things worst for people? 😈 I tell you who... politicians.