I've noticed this popping up in a number of different games, the implication that having a single leader is a bad thing.
The Horde no longer has a warchief, but a council
Forsaken, despite having a 'living' monarch, now have a council.
Even in ff14, that little sultana wants to give up her reign in favour of a democracy.
The whole point of a medieval fantasy is to have a king. In LoTR, the whole premise is the Return of the King.
These 'democratic councils' feels like an injection of modernism that cheapens the whole raison d'etre of the genre itself.