This chapter focuses on the dynamics of the exercise of power and its impact on citizens’ lives. In an entrenched situation of oligarchic power, it examines, in ethnographic detail, the violation of significant elements of the tangible and intangible urban heritage through political misappropriation, corruption, appeasement of crime and legalisation of illegal actions for electoral gain. The analysis brings out how this violation is received at the grassroots, building towards a discussion of how variations of the “feast, bread and gallows” tactics, double standards, administrative inconsistency, electioneering and political bribery weaken trust and the authority to rule, ultimately affecting the legitimacy of governance. It vindicates Aristotle’s teaching that over time the oligarchy makes itself unbearable and, as it ceases to be useful even in the well-to-do salons, the hope arises that it may finally be overthrown by democracy.