If democracy just means having an election every few years where you stick a tick in a box, there is no reason on earth why that must weaken "the power of the few". In fact in itself it could well increase the power and the fervour, if it meant that they could claim that they were acting with the approval of the many.

For a free society there have to be significant restrictions on the power of any government, and there is, in some ways, a tension between that and "democracy".