Personally I'm infavour of direct democracy over a representative system, with no centralised power structures; However, these are my ideas for improving our current political system to empower citizens as much as I think is possible in a representative system.
The fact that politicians have agendas, manifestos and parties puts the lie to any claims of representation, they represent their own interests and under the current voting system you just get to choose who's promises match closest to your own desires. However, I think it might be possible to work within the loose framework of the current voting system to achieve something much more democratic.
A candidate should stand promising to represent exactly the desires of their community; to enforce this they should enter in to a legally binding contract, which any number of people within that community can sign, stating that if a majority ever calls for his/her resignation he/she will resign immediately. Thus making them directly answerable to the people they represent.
This candidate would vote in parliament as the majority of the community decides to vote. This would make it so that people aren't trying to convince a politician to vote a particular way, instead they have to convince members of their own community; hopefully leading to proper debates and conversation on issues. All the handling of finances and local decisions would be done as per the community's wishes.
If the candidate ever goes against the wishes of the community they can immediately have him/her recalled as per the contract signed by the candidate at the beginning of his/her service.
With multiple such candidates people would be voting at local elections for who they believed had the best ability to champion their cause in parliament and execute their wishes locally. Instead of who promises to do something they may or may not want done.
If such a position were to become popular countrywide, to the extent that parliament was composed greatly of independent community bound representatives it would be much easier for changes which may otherwise have been strongly opposed by those seeking positions of power to take place (assuming the majority of the population wanted these changes).
(Note: When I refer to a majority, I'm speaking of a majority of people voting, rather than a majority of the population. Since not every topic will be of interest to every person.)
