"...his deputies are the oligarchs..." Are you sure it isn't the other way around?
Countries are generally run by a conglomerate of corporations and other institutions like the military, intelligence and financial organisations. Any given president, and the whole political circus that has different names in different countries (congress, parliament, rada, duma etc) is one of the mediation grounds to balance the interests of all the members of those conglomerates. The will of the people has next to no bearing on the whole system, as the "will of the people" is subject to manipulation.
