I live in a country where Representative Democracy is the status quo. I've seen how this leads to such corruption and political lobbying, that I've almost lost trust in the model. However, the model can work, but require strict laws to limit terms in parliament and lobbying.

My personal feeling (having a studied opinion as a scholar of history) is that when an autocracy functions with benevolence for the people it's much more effective than a democracy, but a great potential always exist for it to become tyrannical. Ultimate power corrupts ultimately. I think the founding fathers of the US were able to find the perfect balance between empowering the people and giving the government authority, while maintaining an effective governing system. Laws need to be re-introduced to prevent the same personalities to dominate the political landscape in the US (John McCain as one example).