100% voter turnout, full democratic participation, makes sense in a village of 50 people. Everyone can be reasonably expected to truly know all contenders, and know the needs of everyone else, and how helping one person may impact negatively others.

In a village of 500,000,000 people, much less so. Most people nowadays can't even name their direct neighbor, let alone how their direct neighbor's needs may impact their own, and then extend that to the entire population? Zero chance.