The new congress, which the provinces had insisted upon since March, finally met on 7 November 1823. The second Constituent Congress was quite different from the first. It represented the provinces more equitably, and some of its members possessed instructions to form only a federal republic. Oaxaca, Yucatán, Jalisco, and Zacatecas, which had become states, elected state congresses, rather than provincial deputations, as the convocatoria required. The Mexico City-based national elite, which had been struggling for power since 1808, and which had taken control in 1821, lost it two years later to the provincial elites. Although some members of the national elite were elected to the new constituent congress, they formed a distinct minority. Indeed, only thirty-five of the one hundred-forty-four deputies and alternates elected to the new legislature had served in the earlier Mexican Cortes.