Are the directors also isolated from the outside world, strictly sworn to secrecy, with only a subset of members of the board eligible for election by a two-thirds supermajority, unless the last CEO changed the voting rules again?
It absolutely is an election, I wasn't disagreeing with that. It's a particularly ritualistic one, which also isn't a discredit, just an observation about the singular nature of it.
But if you want to defend the legitimacy of the papal elections, I suggest finding a less openly corrupt analogue than corporate leadership. At least the pope has to know about the faith he's supposed to lead; CEOs only need to know how to manipulate markets to make numbers go up and pretend they can go up infinitely.
