You're missing the most crucial element of all, the class that makes up the majority of society should be the ones running and controlling the state and the commanding heights of the economy. If you have a small ruling class, as it exists in every single capitalist country, this class will bend whatever democratic institutions exist on paper to suit their whims. Any "independent media" will be flooded with media dominated by them. Education will be twisted to value capitalism. It isn't that "crony capitalism" eroded democracy, it's that bourgeois democracy has never and can never represent the working class.

For democracy to even exist, the workers must run and own the state and the commanding heights of the economy at a minimum.