Once Cádiz is secured, attention turns to the political situation.

The Junta Central had announced that the cortes would open on March 1, 1810.

Suffrage is to be extended to all male householders over twenty-five.

After public voting, representatives from district-level assemblies will choose deputies to send to the provincial meetings that will be the bodies from which the members of the cortes will emerge.

From February 1, 1810, the implementation of these decrees had been in the hands of the new regency council selected by the Junta Central.

The viceroyalties and independent captaincies general of the overseas territories will each send one representative.

This scheme will be resented in America for providing unequal representation to the overseas territories.

Unrest will erupt in Quito and Charcas, which see themselves as the capitals of kingdoms (present-day Ecuador and Bolivia, respectively) and resent being subsumed in the larger "kingdom" of Peru.

The revolts will be suppressed.

Throughout early 1809 the governments of the capitals of the viceroyalties and captaincies general will elect representatives to the Junta, but none will arrive in time to serve on it.