Question

In our synagogue (hundreds of families), the community power-brokers announced the appointment of a new rabbi.
They said there would be elections.
And indeed, they spoke, consulted with the public, and brought in 3 candidates. All three were the same: they studied in the same yeshivot, all were native-born Israelis, they think the same way, all speak in the same style, all fit the interests of the power-brokers. Lo and behold, a perfect match, grapes with grapes, like a glove on a hand. They won’t make trouble for the power-brokers — at least that’s how it seems. And they offered the public to choose the most suitable one out of the three.
A great and bitter outcry arose among the public: how can it be that we are asked to choose 1 out of 3 when all of them are educationally identical — the same places, the same methods of study, the same sub-sub-sector — and there is no diversity or change whatsoever among the candidates? It’s like going to the ballot box and having 3 options, but on every slip the same party name is written…
The only difference we noticed is that 1 of the candidates is tall, 1 is short, and 1 is fat and older (I’m not joking — that’s the noticeable difference; beyond that it’s not clear whether there is any, and certainly it’s not noticeable without a magnifying glass, the kind used to inspect an etrog’s pitam and blemishes).
The huge public, of course, is much more diverse — many immigrants, many from all kinds of study halls and varied styles — asked the power-brokers to postpone the election by a few days and add a fourth candidate as they saw fit, just one a bit more diverse.
Of course, in their heavy-handed way they paid no attention, and in a grab they immediately held elections, and as expected someone was indeed chosen…
It became known that the one elected boasts that he is a student of a certain rabbi, and he publicizes himself that way again and again. And some say that if you approach that same rabbi who guided him and trained him for the rabbinate, that rabbi says — and says loudly — that the man is not suited to the role…
The power-brokers, for their own reasons, are actually pleased with the choice.
So now the question is:
Are we obligated to regard him as our rabbi, or, as many believe, is he the rabbi of the power-brokers and not of the public?
And the fact that in the end he was elected — whether because he was the least bad of the others, or even if many thought he was good and worthy — still, this was not really an election, so does that not obligate us?
Some claim it is literally like going into the ballot box and discovering 3 identical slips.
Obviously at the end of the day one of the slips will win; it’s always the one the power-brokers wanted, not the public, which demanded at least 1 more diverse option.