The population has more right, and is better qualified, to participate in the decision-making process over issues that affect their daily lives and the conditions of the society they live in, than any handful of elites who will always be prone to make decisions in their own interests against the interests of the general pubic.
Responsiveness of the state to the population has always been a feature of Islamic government. The governors appointed by “Umar bin al-Khattab were not even allowed to have gates on their houses precisely because this would restrict the people’s access to them and it would create distance between the governors and those whom they ruled, which could potentially render the governor unaccountable to the people.
There is nothing whatsoever wrong with a democratic political system if it exists within a Shari’ah framework; a constitution that limits legislative powers to preserve those rules and regulations in Islam which are not subject to opinion or debate. But these, frankly, are few, and the issues government has to deal with are many, and most of these issues will have a direct bearing on the daily lives and conditions of the population, and they absolutely have a right to participate in the policies which will impact them.