Yea, you are right about the rioters mostly having criminal tendencies and such criminals wanting to rule. (Unfortunately we already have many of them in power, directly or indirectly but that's a different issue.) But you are ignoring the politics of votes.
Practically in a democracy an organized minority is majority.
If the rioters belong to a supposed minority group it becomes a delicate situation. And no matter how careful you are the moment you try to call out on the actions of minority you will get bombarded with accusation of right winged communal maniac.
I think people radically over-estimate how effective those accusations are.
The reason most people get confused is because of how vocal the people who are against such things become.
Take many of the U.S. political issues.
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The argue that 'moderation makes for more votes' is the classic statistical heresy as hedging bets. Betting against yourself is a no-win situation.
Granted, the recent wave of republican elections is largely due to the fact that they are "not the democrats" - and certainly not because they have principles. Already, even with veto-proof majorities in many states, all I hear out of the mouths of politicians is "bipartisan" and "work together" - which is just stupid when they are supposed to be the party that stands for the reduction of government authority and the people have become horribly upset with the expansion of government authority.
This election drew an unprecedented amount of support for third party candidates - which indicates the base may be leaving both parties (those in the Democrats getting fed up with the radicalization of their party and their refusal to accept that mathematics exists... and those in the Republicans who are tired of seeing a party exist as merely 'not the democrats' that tries to make everyone happy and thereby pisses everyone off).
We have illegal migrant from neighboring countries which are able to procure the documents only Indian citizens should be allowed but to corrupt politicians who protect and secure them such documents in return for mass voting. I had a maid which had more legit documentation than my Indian maid I had before her. That Indian tribal woman had to face several hardships to collect them and ultimately she left for her village after an attempted kidnapping of her minor daughter from their home ( while she was out working) by some youths of that illegal minority group.
That sounds a little more rough than the status of our Southern Border with Mexico - but parts of it are rapidly reaching that point.
She had 3 daughters and decided to leave the metro for the safety of them all. I can't forget her face when suddenly she turned up after 2 hours of leaving and asked me to pay of her salary whatever I see fit( as she got paid on monthly basis and had worked only a few days that month) . That if I hadn't money ready she would not return to collect it later even next day for they were going back that very night.
In the capital of the country she had no one to help her against a bunch of criminals who had political support. ( No the religion of the criminal is not important here because it was the political support which caused this but still it's a sad truth that those criminals were not even legit citizens but people were afraid to go against them). Their payment to politicians = VOTE.
This is precisely why the President of our own nation is attempting to enact amnesty for most of the hispanic illegal migrants in our nation. Generally speaking, the hispanics lean in favor of his party - though these will likely lean especially hard in favor of his party as he has essentially given them rights to government assistance programs (free living) and protection from deportation.
Of course - I am not sure how he can draw the legal case for doing it... but if no one is going to deport the illegals and/or arrest the President - then they may as well be considered legal, now and the signing of the executive action is just a formality.
The middle class majority talks a lot but doesn't go to polling booth. It stays at home calling all politicians corrupt and criminals. The typical drawing room talk...
In contrast most from the organized minority communities see their mass votes as a bargaining chip. And they are more prompt and regular. And the illegal ones are even more specific about it and never fail to turn up. So yeah.. collecting mass votes become a key factor if the vote margin is not that big.
The biggest obstacle to a democracy is candidacy for an office.
The problem in the U.S. has been exacerbated by a largely two-party system (not to mention the confusion of American Left/Right with political Left/Right the rest of the world over; the American Left/Right tends to deal more with social issues while the World Left/Right tends to deal with Democratic Socialism versus Autocratic Fascism). Because there have almost always been two main parties dating back to the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates surrounding the formation of the Constitution, it has always been the fear that a third party would 'split' the vote.
For example - I identify strongly with Libertarians in terms of how our government should be run. I am perhaps even closer to an Anarchist than Libertarian, by the metrics of some. I have voted Libertarian several times, and would do so, again. As would many others whom I have talked to.
The problem is that people of the conservative base (and the liberal base) are afraid of straying from the main party. "A vote for anyone other than a Republican is essentially a vote for a Democrat."
Even then, there are very good Republican candidates who I would have loved to see placed up for election. Generally - a party won't replace its own incumbent member, but even when that is not an obstacle - the candidates in the primary are often very selectively chosen (and in some cases, even prevented from running by the party).
The challenge with democracy is the process of candidacy.
For example:
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A dead person can be elected.
I don't think a 'stronger voter turnout' - at least in America - would really change the statistics that much.
Of course... other data shows that elections can be as much about terminology as it is about anything else:
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Particularly among my own generation.
Granted - I know what my generation has been through in public schooling. You are basically taught in history that people were ignorant and the government enlightened them. So I understand why the polling data is as skewed as it is. It's the contrast of brainwashing against people who still understand reality to work differently.
I'm not saying you're wrong - particularly with events in your own country.
I am just trying to add a somewhat different perspective/opinion.
I think the most important power the people should have is that of "Recall." The ability to fire a representative. It works better in Three-party systems than in two-party systems, because you don't have the idea that "majority rules" - because the candidate who won with 40% of the vote can just as easily face a 60% vote to yank them out of office for corrupt behavior.
There again - I came up with the "Water Tower" model of government, somewhat in jest. Basically, every few years, you ritualistically sacrifice all of the democratically elected representatives by hanging them from a water tower. Perhaps this is after they pass any piece of legislation. Or perhaps they can double the value of their vote if they martyr themselves from the water tower for the sake of passing the bill.
That might be the more sinister model - get them into a bidding war to see how many will hurl themselves to their death for a bill to 'help the poor' with billions of dollars in earmarked spending to cronies.
... I'm a morbid person...
Edit:
After further thought - I came up with an even better system.
If, within 48 hours of a bill's passing, a representative is -found- impaled upon the legislature's property... then the legislator's vote on said bill will count as 3x the normal value and no investigation will be conducted into the loss of life.
Therefor, when a candidate sticks his her or name to a bill and says it is 'for' one specific group... said group has a very good reason to sacrifice their representative to get a key piece of legislation through.
It's diabolical and brilliant. See how far special interest groups get in the legislature when they start piking people on the front lawn for bills that no one has read.
... I probably just got myself in trouble, there, but, *shrug* perhaps someone got a chuckle out of it.
