Since the head of the commission was never ever voted for in the EU elections, who ever was proposed was just providing a face anyway. Much like the Chancellor in Germany, you vote for a party that proposed a person to become chancellor in case said party leads a coalition government. There is no way to prevent said party to just have someone else being elected chancellor by parliament. It is still democratic so.
Von Der Leyen was not proposed by any party. The parties proposed other leaders. The "spitzenkandidaten" system that led to Juncker becoming EU President was only used once and was ignored this time. In fact nobody knows why or how Von Der Leyen became the EU President, only that the council leaders disappeared into a secret meeting and at the end, the deed was done. What was discussed? Were countries bribed or threatened to go along with it? What exactly qualified her for this role given her track record of failure in Germany? Nobody knows the answers to these questions.
So no, it's really nothing like the Chancellor in Germany or leadership anywhere else. The EU's own misinformation campaign around this topic is clearly highly effective. Normally, the people who run the country are elected by at least some local voters and then by the party itself. With the EU Commission, the president just ... turned up.
That's certainly one theory. Point is, it's just speculation. Nobody knows and the council members, despite theoretically answering to voters, systematically refuse to say anything about what goes on in those meetings. Isn't that curious?
