In Canada, one has to be a member of a party to vote in the party leadership contests. Maybe 5% of Canadians are party members. Divide that by four parties--and our prime minister might have approval of 2% of Canadians--at the level of internal party elections.

The whole process is feudalistic, where a small minority selects the names to go on the ballot. This feudalism is part of modern democratic systems. In essence, the more important race is the internal party election, not the general election.

Anyways, I could really elaborate in this post. Maybe it will be a Medium article some day.

The flaws which you have described are more reasons for abandoning western democracy.