What would have been against the rules would have been to run in the election with the clear intention to step down afterwards, for example by announcing that you only intended to be a stand-in and had been willing to step down quickly before the election took place.
As far as I see (I have a character in Sirion), your character actually intended to keep the region. That he is being pushed out afterwards does not really come into play; sometimes, you just lose a power struggle.