To be fair, even though the movies use words like "Empire" and "Rebels" the political world building in the first movie is paper thin. The focus is really on the boy becoming a hero, on having a big adventure. The empire is powerful and looks scary, but we never get into the actual system of government, and at no point do the rebels ever say they want to restore democracy. They just want to take down the empire.

It has always seemed to me like George Lucas painted himself into many corners with the first movie because he didn't actually think about what these throw-away references meant. Like, people latched onto the term "The Clone Wars", but I don't think he ever thought about what that actually meant, other than some words that sounded cool together.