DPRK local “elections” completed

Pictured above: Photos from Korean Central Television of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un voting.

KCNA is now reporting the completion of the DPRK’s “elections” to local peoples assemblies.

According to Yonhap:

The Korean Central News Agency said 99.97 percent of all registered voters voted for a total of 28,116 candidates for deputies in people’s assemblies across the country.

In North Korean elections, turnout is usually near 100 percent and candidates, hand-picked by the ruling party, are elected with absolute support.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il also cast his ballot at a polling station in Pyongyang, along with his heir-apparent son Kim Jong-un and a senior party official, according to the KCNA.

According to the APF:

During their four-year term, the local assemblies convene once or twice a year to approve budgets and endorse local leaders appointed by the communist party.

Analysts have said this year’s elections were aimed at revamping official bodies before a major political event next year to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of founding president Kim Il-Sung.

According to Itar-Tass (Russia):

Foreign reporters – correspondents of Itar-Tass, the Chinese Xinhua news agency and Chinese central television – were invited to polling station No.134, located at the North Korean National Economy University. The chairman of the North Korean Central Election Commission told Itar-Tass that “our country will mark the centenary of Kim Il-Sung’s birth date when the country will flung open its doors to the building of the mighty and prosperous state”.

Therefore, the present elections, he continued, “are called upon to consolidate people’s power and to demonstrate the nation’s unity”.

The chairman said that any candidate over 17 had the right to participate in the campaign. In compliance with the republican Constitution, the term of office of deputies of local bodies of self-rule who are called here “servants of people”, is four years. Sessions of these bodies of power, called once or twice a year, confirm local budgets and an economic action plan as well as elect chairmen of people’s and administrative committees, judges and assessors.

Here are KCNA articles about the election: here, here, here, here, and here.

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