You are really cute, Aston. 
It’s not about who is in the political office, at all. It’s about how are they being influenced by others after getting into the office and whether they become clones of the guy before them (they always do). What has been observed, time and again, in many places (not just Eastern Europe), is that the politicians optimise for certain metrics that usually have absolutely nothing to do with their people’s well-being.
Democracy is only working on paper because there are “shadow governments” in a lot of places that help official politicians get elected and then they are their puppets, more or less. Those people in the shadows are usually high-profile and very rich criminals and they are not replaceable by a democratic process. They usually own a huge chunk of the country’s media as well.
(Remember the Panama papers? Remember other leaks before that? Did any of that change anything, ever?)
The thin veneer of democracy apparently makes some people think they have true power – you are one example. But as a guy who grew up in a former Soviet republic and has witnessed 31 years of “democratic transition” I have to tell you that people in power fall in a very narrow psychological profile group. And those people mostly care for re-election and being on good terms with many others like them (home or abroad), and the well-being of the citizens becomes a footnote.
This might be too cynical for an optimistic believer like yourself but you should at least entertain what me and @Eiji say. Money and power are addictive, there are even studies proving that (and I’ll never forgive myself for not keeping those links but I am sure with enough search they can be found even today).