It's sad, but with the level of corruption in many governments, the only way to get change that serves the people is to educate the people so that they can see through their misinformation. Once the population is highly informed about the issues, they can't pull their usual tricks without a high risk of losing their job.

I realise that the general population should have an active role to play in all democracies, but sometimes you'd wish they'd just do the right thing without needing to be micromanaged through it.