yeah, and even that comes from blatant (and in some cases deliberate) lack of understanding of democratic centralism and the CPC’s democratic centralist system as I understand it. Westerners see the final external result of the end-process as “only one candidate and ~100% votes for them, such totalitarianism!” in total ignorance that the actual nomination itself is the democratic electoral process, where the putting forth of candidates, and vociferous internal debate and voicing opposition takes place in the Central Committee (who are in turn themselves elected by the National Congress in plenary sessions) — and where once the will of the majority of the CC is decided for who gets the nomination, then that is the party line to be carried out along the lines of the principles of democratic centralism.

And so the end-process bit the westerners see and are talking about as an “only one candidate ‘election’” is essentially just the subsequent vote-of-confidence and ratification of the process and results by the CC and National Congress — ie. a confirmation by the relevant Party bodies that proper procedure was followed, and the people officially elevated for the candidacy were actually the people the majority of the CC voted to nominate for that position, without post-hoc substitutions or other chicanery.