Okay, I played for a while longer. Our score certainly shot up on the graph when I started keeping big cities instead of razing them.
So, I've eliminated Huayna and reduced Mao to one city. I decided to attack Mao rather than await him attacking us. Of course, this triggered his DP with Huayna (which I forgot about), so HC had to die too.
There was a bit of a scare when Sec General Hatty tried to get herself a diplo victory. I debated abstaining (does that mean the pool of votes is lower?) or voting for us (but we don't want to win a diplo victory!). I ended up voting for us and even though Hatty (with Mansa's votes) got more votes, it wasn't enough for victory. We should have the population to become Sec General next election.
Mansa and Hatty are each about 2 big parts away from their spaceships. It will be something of a challenge to keep them from launching.
I'll try to play again some more tomorrow, since I'm assuming no one else will pick it up before then.