Few popes have done more damage to the church than Pope John Paul II did. His malfeasance with respect to the clergy sex abuse crisis was a colossal failure of leadership and of judgement.
Popes are chief executives who choose people who support their agendas to help them implement them. The word "sycophant" is as applicable, or not, to John Paul's appointments as to Francis' or any other pope's. Like many pseudo-conservatives, you use the word "orthodox" recklessly, incorrectly and imprecisely in an effort to score debating points.
No pope in modern history was more arrogant, self-promoting and self-involved than was John Paul II. 
In one sentence you aver that church governance cannot be compared to secular governance, and in the next you allow that "elections do have consequences." Karol Wojtyla began campaigning for the papacy at least as early as the immediate post-Council years. Elections are political by definition. That absolutely includes papal elections.