"Absolute Power Corrupts"

I think that is true. Can anyone picture Laguna maybe 20 years down the road then? He's a pretty unselfish guy. Going through heck and back to rescue Ellone, but it seems he didn't protest much when he was given the presidency. He said he wasn't paying attention and was given the title.

I think he was unselfish in the fact that he wanted to go back with Ellone to Winhill, but said he couldn't because he was so busy running Esthar. And if your government is you and a few aides, I can see that happening easily. I'd guess Esthar probably has the highest population in FFVIII, maybe a couple of million easily. I like to round it off at 2.5 million.

Still, to some degree, he must have some kind of corruption or weakness somewhere, even if he is the perfect kind hearted dictator. Like Kim Jong Un, or whatever the new guys name is. Everyone "loves" that guy, right? heh-heh...at least that the way they want it to appear on western TV...

From messages here and across a few other forums, I get the impression thus far that Esthar is a Republican Dictatorship. The public elects the president and he serves for life. I kinda wanted some evidence of a constitutional Monarchy thrown in there too. He is elected to serve until death, but he is limited to some degree by a constitution. For example, no executing the poor guy in a robe in front of the Presidential Palace because he is wearing hot pink. I HATE hot Pink, notes Laguna to the guard in front of the palace and he walks along his guards into the city and the guard locks and loads his shotgun pick thingy (in my Esthar, i'm giving the guards Caster M16's or something, lol).

I'd think that after the Adel disaster of a dictatorship, that the "founding fathers" of the new Esthar, the revolution leaders, would probably make a few new rules. Like maybe capping Odine a little bit on what he can and can't do with his subjects, like slavery (if I remember correctly from the Lunatic Pandora Lab).

Also, Selphie mentions in her diary that Adel rose to power in a similar fashion to how Edea did. Got close to the previous leader and off with his/her head when the time was right. So I guess there could have already been an established Constitutional Monarchy/Republican Dictatorship that was temporarily put on hold while Adel took over.

The only question is, what happened right after Adel. Much of this, pure speculation, but fun and helpful regardless. I'm only looking for the most likely answer, not the absolute fact, lol.