The best thing about democracy, bar none, is the uncontestable unambiguous legitimacy that it gives to the people who take power according to its rules.  This is pretty much the conventional wisdom as far as I can tell.

It is really not that hard to design uncontestable unambiguous sources of legitimacy that have nothing to do with winning elections.

“To be emperor, you have to have successfully matriculated from the nation’s accredited emperor school.”  

(Yeah, yeah, something something “will of the people,” I am not impressed and at this juncture I don’t think anyone else is either.)