The following excerpt is from an alternate history novel. Can you critique the system of government described in the excerpt? What are the benefits? What problems might arise from this system? What could be improved? On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being an authoritarian dictatorship and 10 being a direct democracy, how democratic is this system? It should be noted the current year is 1896. In this timeline, Prince Fredrick is exiled to the American colonies after pissing off his father. Through a serious of events, he becomes King of Britain and forms a personal union between the mainland and British North America.

"The country’s official name is: EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA (ENA).
The people are known as: AMERICANS (or, much more rarely, SEPTENTRIANS).
Capital: Fredericksburg, Fredericksburg Province, Confederation of Virginia
Largest city: New York City, Amsterdam Province, Confederation of New York (1.8 million)
Flag: The ‘Starry George’, a red cross on a dark blue field with five golden stars on the cross and nine small golden stars in the canton. The five stars represent the original five Confederations of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Carolina; the nine stars represent the present-day nine Confederations of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, (“Old”) Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Westernesse, Drakesland and Cygnia.
Population: 54 million (based on estimated growth since 1890 census).
Land area: ca. 1,000,000 lcf. Limited surveying of the far north, Greenland and the Antipodean interior introduce uncertainty to this figure.
Economic ranking: Generally ranked 2nd in the world, with some caveats about whether British interests should be considered separately.
Form of government: Federal Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy. Head of state: Emperor (also the King of Great Britain and Ireland). Head of government: Lord President (today generally just called President) who heads a government in the federal (or Imperial) Continental Parliament in Fredericksburg. The Continental Parliament has supreme sovereignty and exercises sole authority over foreign affairs, but many domestic issues are delegated to the Confederal governments which are considered the legal successors to the (larger number of) colonial governments predating the adoption of the American Constitution in 1788. Each Confederation is further divided into Provinces; the nature of provincial and municipal government is not constitutionally mandated and varies widely. Members of the Continental Parliament (MCPs) are elected from usually multi-member constituencies based on Provinces or cities (Burghs) within them by means of bloc vote first-past-the-post. This is centrally mandated but Confederations can decide their own electoral arrangements for their Confederal assemblies; in 1890 New England adopted the new electoral system of Modified American Percentage Representation (MAPR).
Foreign relations: The ENA heads up an informal ‘Hanoverian’ alliance including the kingdoms in personal union of Great Britain, Ireland and Iceland, as well as dynastically unconnected nations such as the Kingdom of Venezuela. Americans have also tended to take a dominant position in the (formerly British) East India Company from Natal westwards, although the Royal Africa Company retains more Britons on its board of directors.The ENA is generally disinterested in Old World affairs beyond trade, but seeks to dominate the Novamund, which means an opposition to colonialism by outside powers (in particular Russia’s activities in Alyeska, New Muscovy and New Siberia). This also means the ENA has historically had variable relations with the UPSA, which has the same ultimate goal of Novamundine domination. The two countries played a part in each others’ founding and have been inextricably linked through trade ever since, despite the ruptures of the Third Platinean War and, more seriously, the Great American War. In the 1870s the bitter aftermath of the latter was eased by the ‘Seventies Thaw’ and agreements to share influence over countries such as Cuba and Mexico, but more recently both Supremacist rhetoric in the ENA and struggles over corporate domination in the UPSA have begun to make the northern and southern powers regard each other with more suspicion.
Military: The ENA resisted the formation of a centralised Imperial army for some years due to public suspicion of a standing army (preferring the legal fiction that all American regiments were seconded parts of the British Army) but since the Inglorious Revolution in Great Britain, an American Army has existed with the Emperor as its formal commander-in –chief. The Imperial Navy’s formation was less controversial and it evolved naturally from the American Squadron of the Royal Navy. In 1877 the Imperial Aeroforce was split off as a separate service. America is also known for considering its Imperial Marines as an unofficial fourth service, stemming from filmish heroics in Admiral Warner’s West Indian campaign during the Great American War.
Current head of state: Emperor George IV (House of Hanover)
Current head of government: President Stuart Jamison (Supremacist Party)"