If there were only one candidate, a revolution (god forbid) would deal with it. However, as there are several, a civil war is on the horizon.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, page 388 (in French)
January 18th, 1849

Extremely short letter written in the midst of a political crisis, one month after the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as president of the second republic on December 10th, 1848 and two weeks before the self winding down of the assembly (topic of the letter) on January 29th, 1849.

What is interesting here is not only to see how fragile democracy can be but also what is the point of having a democracy. Unlike what a lot of people think, it is not because it allows to find a majority that democracy is desirable. Democracy is desirable because it helps stabilising institutions and allows for the acceptance of electoral defeat by the minority. Indeed, if electoral defeat is not accepted (or does not exist in the case of a standard dictatorship), the alternative that remains for those who do not have political power is either revolution (when they agree among themselves) or civil war (when opponents are in disagreement themselves).

This is one of the reasons why the political polarisation that we can observe nowadays is worrying. When the political power is not recognised as legitimate anymore, democracy is in danger.