(nossl) What do Ursula von der Leyen and Putin have in common?
mikhailian.mova.org
mikhailian.mova.org
War is peace.
Also, prime ministers in most parliamentary systems.
As you may know European Parliament is not really a Parliament either, as it can neither enact laws nor appoint EU executives, it just approves or rejects Council proposals.
I live in one of the states that belongs to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
"democratic" and "elected" are entirely different adjectives.
The system for electing the US President is very much not democratic, and still the President is very much elected. (Though its less undemocratic than it used to be, when the electors themselves were not generally directly elected by the voters.)
There are indirect elections that are reasonably demoocratic despite being indirect (the PM in some, but not all, parliamentary systems), there are elections that aren't based on anything like a general citizenry at all—e.g., Papal elections. For a leader to be elected is certainly not a sufficient condition for their position to be held democratically (it may be a necessary condition, though.)
Supposedly, the council should put forward the candidate of the main party in the parliament but this has already been breached once.
But the system is likely to change soon because Von Der Leyen keeps playing with fire with the prerogatives of the position and annoying the council so much that I believe a change is unavoidable.