Seems like a trick question to me, the founders of the republic and everyone who didn't push for legal consequences (such as permanent ineligibility for civil service) for major civil infractions is at fault.
A pure democracy is garbage because it never protects a minority from the greed of the majority. No amount of education can stop populists if the education is covering the fact that your framework technically legalizes unethical behavior.
The majority of citizens in any system are going to have frustrations from some of the many trade offs made to keep a system and would rather not have the total of that frustration hit a topic where they are in the minority.
This is why a well educated wealthy person and a racist populist are often the same person, if you come from wealth then better a race argument than a class argument causing a violation of civil rights whenever the republic wrongly gives ground to the democracy.
Sorry, but if the majority of people decided to democratically elect the same people in charge, who's at fault here?
If political misbehavior is not punished though votes, then what's left?
Maybe the people should learn to vote better.