The King chuckled. They finally started asking the good questions now.

"I see Mr. Furtelin is getting to the real question here and a damn complex one at that."

Some of the Ryccians laughed as well, but quite the entire room.

"Yes we do have a democratic system in the Stoinian Government. Now note the key word there, government. Because in our system the overall governance is more complex than your system from what I have seen. A core element of our society is the independence of our military from the civilian government. This has been put in place about 30 years ago after my Regent's, General MacArthur, reign in accordance with my opinion. These decimating wars that we have fought have proved us that the military must protect its citizens without interference from the civilian government for optimal results. Of course the military has its codes of protocol, law and ethics to ensure they aren just warmongers. To also prevent a coup I am its head and at the same time the head of the civilian government. Stoinian civilians only play taxes to pay for the pensions of retired military personnel as all other expense, and I repeat, all other expenses are handled by the military itself. And no we don't have a democratic system within the military as it will compromise the efficiency. Except for the election of a new Strategos, the right hand man of the monarch within the military. Though it isn't quite worth to be called democratic as numerous factors go into such a vote."

"Now that I have explained the military part, let's get to what you are really interested. The Civilian Government. There we have the separation of powers in different branches: the judicial, executive and legislative. The Executive branch is the Royal Cabinet which is lead by the Chancellor with a mandate of four years. The Chancellor is elected by popular vote and receives his mandate from the monarch. Note that the monarch is allowed disband the Cabinet at any time, but this is only used in times of emergencies and the Chancellor is given most of the monarch's powers when it comes to overall civilian matters throughout the Kingdom. The Chancellor is also helped by the different ministries.
The legislative part consists of Congress which is split into two houses. The People's Assembly as the lower house and the Planetary Assembly as the upper house. The People's Assembly has the Representatives of each planet and the number of the representatives is in accordance with the planets population. Each Representative has a mandate of 4 years and are immune to planetary referenda to remove him from office. This is to prevent chaos with ones representatives as they have a rather short mandate. The Planetary Assembly works differently. Each planet has a set of two members per planet to protect the planetary interest so policies aren't just dictated by the most populated planets. The Senator, elected by the people for a mandate of 8 years, and the Viceroy, chosen by the local noble house. Both aren't immune to planetary referenda and a different person will e elected to complete their mandates."

"That's the highest level of democracy. Of course each planet has its own Governor elected by popular vote for four years. It is notable that the local noble houses are more of a symbol than anything else.  They are meant to be representatives of the Ruling House of Stoian though these lesser houses aren't related in any way with the ruling houses. On the contrary, nobles are required to marry common people as to prevent an exclusionist elite."

"As for the civil rights. The Stoinians do have a lot of them. They have the right to vote, freedom of speech in any way or form, a fair trial, government services, public education, healthcare, self defence, to bear arms for the purpose of self defence and self sustainability on the frontier worlds, free movement and survival which is protected by the military."

"Now it has been quite a ride wouldn't you say. I believe it is now time for your final questions so make it a good one."

He then pointed at a Terran on the utmost left on the second row.