The high tinker reminds me slightly of FDR.

The country (Gnomer) was under extreme stress from outside influences and a capable leader stepped up and pulled them out of the fire. They begged him to keep his position because he was the most capable in their eyes, but there is a key difference. Mekkatorque is not in failing health and will likely not pass away anytime soon.

Does this effect the political climate? Here we have a democracy that has turned into a meritocracy that could very easily turn into a dictatorship when a leader realizes that the only thing supporting his rule is the war to reclaim their capital. If you want to delve too deeply of course ( They didn't 'retake' the city. Only a large portion of it. The conflict goes on. Why? The leader story seemed to imply that the he would gladly give up his rule at the point when hostilities are ended, but I'm curious of his compounded sense of duty for his people. Good intentions and what not always seems to be at the root of the destruction of personal liberties).

In an effort to root out a potential dictator the Stormwind king went on a personal mission to Ironforge and assassinated many of the would-be leader's forces and 'declared' that the country be ruled by a three person council (Source - the Shattering). The Alliance can hardly be considered a League of Nations when such overt subterfuge is used to keep order (I'd like to see the wording on that Mandate..)

--Note, keeping Anduin Wrynn a political hostage might have sparked the raid, but deciding how the city/dwarven nations should be ruled seems a bit beyond the scope of his authority.

In theory all democracy should be meritocracies then - we always try to vote for who we think would be the best leader by some standard. Whether that standard is "shares my morals", "doesn't impose her morals on me" or "makes the best tinker shinies" is really beside the point. The gnomes are definitely a form of democracy, their particular choice of metric by which to evaluate candidates is just a bit unusual - but that is a consequence of their culture.
I imagine if there was ever a geek utopia founded where only FSF approved software licenses were valid and only programmers (of the original meaning of the word "hacker" variety) could get citizenship - then it would operate in much the same way as the gnome society does.