The bright lights of evening cover darkness with glitter. In the corner a Casino beckons the impoverished to wager on better days ahead. Under the strobing red lights of evening young women and men offer extended massage services with and without happy ending. The evening lights mask a struggle of generations.
There, the remnants of a failed attempt at communism, with a little help from the Chinese. The the emerging dream of a constitutional monarchy. A king twice crowned. A lucky King. In the Royal Palace an opulence of colonial wealth is retained. The silver temple has a floor that could give everyone a meal for a month.
So the form of government and the structure of government has not changed the power imbalance.