Random idea: what if instead of electing politicians, instead we used democracy to set policy directions, usually by setting up temporary groups to draft and propose more complex/technical legislation (with a charter that was voted on that sets the group's mission)? A second vote would be required to accept the results. Simple things would just be voted on directly.

The civil service would continue to run day to day operations, so not everything needs to be codified by the people.

Disclaimer: I'm not proposing this idea, I'm just collecting other perspectives on it.

Also, my inspiration for the idea comes from two sources:
1. In the US, our current legislative system is more or less broken. Political gridlock has been so bad for so long that not much is getting passed, and so the executive and judiciary have had to step in to effectively legislate through executive orders and court rulings respectively.

A legislative based on direct voting would be much slower, but maybe this is not really that big of a problem, especially if the tradeoff is better results

Plus, do we really need a more complex base legal code? Obviously there are always going to be highly technical issues, but that's why we would have working groups appointed by the people for these specific legislative missions. We could also let the civil service and judiciary deal with a lot of the technical work, only stepping in if they are causing problems.

2. It's a weakness of the current system that a politician's livelihood/position is tied to their office. This makes close elections high stakes affairs, while at the same time not being an incentive for politicians with secure seats. Loss of position should only really be a penalty for bad behavior

So, instead of having a limited number of coveted seats with fierce competition, why not allow anyone to participate?

Having more voices than just the voices that won the election would be good too