That, I'm afraid is the necessary price we have to pay for democracy. Whether we like it or not, even with all the challenges it brings, I believe it's far better than the alternatives.
First Yes, second but:
...the KNOWN alternatives or the TESTED alternatives
I dedicated one of my works, still in the making to the yet untested and unknown alternatives but can give a hint as to where i'm finally heading.
a)
the problem among others of course, but to start with would be:collective irresponsibility
this among the voters as well among any kind of leadership.
b)
solutions I'm pondering over are towards to hold politicians PERSONALLY responsible not
through non-re-election but through common means like huge financial fines/penalties, prison and ultimately death sentences depending on the crime committed, starting with false promises, neglect, ending with going to dirty wars and/or make the dependent part of the public suffer otherwise.
all campaign related things has to be in writing and signed like a contract and can only be
altered through public consent (kind of referendums) else to breech the contract is
punished with above means.
details or not so easy to put into a few sentences but ultimately we need two main things
to change something for the better:
I. Consequently Enforced Responsibility of the PERSON(n) IN CHARGE, no hiding behind parties
foreign pressure etc.
II. Limiting wealth per capita to take the most widely spread motivation for corruption out of the system, also politicians will have a lower life-time limit to avoid later kick-backs etc. etc.
Also all corruption, no matter the name like i.e. lobbying, has to be prohibited and punished
by above mentioned means.
That my work will have 2 times 5-600 pages so you can imagine how in vain and dangerous it is to try to give a clue in this place in just a few sentences but your post made me post this because:
Democracy is best know but still very very bad because the average voter is exactly that AVERAGE and who would expect anything better than average when the average rules ?
we need a ruling elite but strictly controlled and to enforce that in a system where the military and the police are controlled by the "to be controlled" and "to be sentenced" is a huge task.