No, there is no flicker, but that does not mean it is ok. You simply cannot distinguish individual items, if you could, you would see it.
The problem as I see it is not that the background is cleared, the main problem, and I wrote it many times, is that the new item if first shown, and only after that the draw handler is called.
Therefore, when the background is cleared, it flickers because the newly shown item is first rendered empty (cleared) and then drawn in handler.
When you ignore the clearing, the program just move the list up or down and leaves the old item where it was, and that old item is then redrawn in the handler. If the old item visually differs from the newly drawn, it might again cause problems.