The EC president is proposed by elected politicians and then elected by elected politicians. Plenty of elections involved there, although no direct ones

However, there are plenty of examples of directly and democratically elected dictators, so I don't think it's really relevant.

Most importantly, leaders' actions determine whether someone's a dictator or not. Centralising power, silencing criticism, capturing the judiciary, locking up the opposition, those are pretty clear indicators.

And finally, for some strange reason dictators respond very poorly to mockery 🤔