ZCZC
BFF-22
NKOREA-POLITICS-VOTE
N. Korea election sees 99.99% turnout: KCNA
PYONGYANG, March 12, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Turnout in North Korea’s single-
candidate elections hit 99.99 percent this year, state media said Tuesday —
up from a seemingly unimprovable 99.97 percent the last time they were held.
With participation figures that Western democracies would never achieve,
millions of North Koreans head to nationwide polls every five years to elect
the rubber-stamp legislature known as the Supreme People’s Assembly.
But with only one approved name on each voting slip in the isolated
country, which is ruled with an iron grip by Kim Jong Un’s Workers’ Party,
the result is never in doubt.
This year’s turnout fell just short of 100 percent as those “abroad or
working in oceans” were unable to take part, the North’s official KCNA news
agency reported.
Like in 2014, results for the nationwide election held at the weekend came
in 100 percent in favour of all named candidates.
“All the electors participated as one in the election to cement our
people’s power as firm as a rock,” KCNA said, citing a report released by the
Central Election Committee.
“One hundred percent of them cast their ballots for the candidates for
deputies to the SPA registered in relevant constituencies,” it added.
A detailed list of the 687 candidates was not immediately available.
But leader Kim’s younger sister and close aide Kim Yo Jong was among the
newly elected according to the South’s Yonhap news agency, citing Pyongyang
state media.
Critics say the North’s election — with its total absence of electoral
competition — is largely a political rite for enabling the authorities to
claim a mandate from the people while reinforcing loyalty to the government
and social unity.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1206 hrs