Your arrogance in assuming that western style democracy is the only valid form of government is astounding. In the USA, the facade of democracy barely hides the fact that it is the Council on Foreign Relations along with Deep State, that determines what the President can do on foreign policy. Trump campaigned on a diplomatic reset with Russia, remember?

Russia has open democratic elections in spite of what you are led to believe. China has a one party system with a merit based selection system where people take decades to move up the power chain.

The weakness of democracies is the lack of continuity in decision making on strategies that can take decades to implement. Governments promise anything to get elected and 90% of the voting public has only superficial knowledge of the real issues. The media is complicit in the deception. Money Power determines who gets elected, not merit or policy.