Regardless of the allegiance to Abu Bakr...

Regardless of the allegiance to Abu Bakr, which they themselves called a mistake the evil of which Allah spared them, it was Abu Bakr who invented the notion of the succession to the post of caliph, appointing, prior to his death, his friend Umar ibn al-Khattab as his successor. At the time of his death, Umar ibn al-Khattab appointed Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf to choose one of five persons whom he recommended for the post of caliph, and to kill anyone who refused to accept the selected one.

When Mu`awiyah secured the post of caliph for himself, he put this principle of succession into practice, appointing his son Yazid ibn Mu`awiyah. Thus, the caliphate remained since that time being handed over from one promiscuous person to another, from one generation to another, each caliph appointing his son, brother, or relative, to succeed him. So did the caliph since the inception of the Abbaside government till its dissolution.

And so did the Ottoman caliphs from the time it was established till the period when the caliphate weakened and waned during the time of Kemal Ataturk in the present century. "Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama`a" represent such caliphate, or, say, those successive governments represented "Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama`a" in all parts of the world, and throughout the Islamic history.

This is why you can now see in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, and all Gulf states rulers who act upon the theory of succession which they inherited from their "good posterity" who all belong to "Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama`a." Even if we suppose that the theory they uphold, the one saying that the Prophet left the issue for mutual consultation, and that the Qur'an endorses the concept of consultation, were accurate, they still opposed the Qur'an and the Sunnah.

They turned the system of "democratic" consultation into a dictatorial monarchic hereditary system of succession. But if we suppose that the Prophet had appointed Ali ibn Abu Talib to succeed him, as the Shi`as argue, "Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama`a" would then be in clear violation of many texts of the Sunnah and contradict the Qur'an. This is so because the Messenger of Allah never did anything without the permission of his Lord.

For this reason, you find them aware of the fact that this issue of mutual consultation is erroneous because the early caliphs did not implement it, nor did they act upon it.