- (AFP) -- Leader Kim Jong-Il won a seat on North Korea's
rubber-stamp parliament with a widely expected 100 percent of the vote
in the Stalinist state's legislative elections, Pyongyang's official media
said.
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- Kim was one of 687 single candidates handpicked by the
ruling Workers Party who stood unopposed and each of whom won 100 percent
of votes cast for the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) on Sunday.
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- The only blackspot, the official Korean Central News
Agency admitted, was the turnout. It stood at 99.9 percent. The stayaway
0.01 percent were living abroad or at sea, KCNA explained.
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- The people gave their "absolute" support to
hereditary dictator Kim, who has run the country since the death of his
father Kim Il-Sung in 1994. Kim won a seat from constituency 649 in the
capital, Pyongyang.
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- "The voters registered at constituency no. 649 all
went to the polls and 100 percent of them voted for Kim Jong-Il ..., "
the agency said.
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- "This is an expression of the absolute support and
trust of all the servicemen and the people in him."
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- Explaining Kim's electoral appeal, KCNA said he was the
man responsible for building up the nation's military power.
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- Last month, North Korea said it had developed nuclear
weapons and has told the United States it is not afraid to use them or
even sell them, according to US officials.
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- "He (Kim) established the state political system
putting stress on national defense on the basis of the original Songum
(military first) idea and developed the people's army into an ever victorious
strong army of the leader and the party ..." KCNA said,.
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- The North's legislature has nominal power to approve
and settle the government budget and handle major state affairs. It convenes
irregularly once or twice a year.
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- Real power resides with the Korean Workers' Party and
the military elite, led by Kim.
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- As general secretary of the Workers' Party, Kim has led
the powerful National Defense Commission, which controls North Korea's
1.2 million-strong military, since the death of his father, Kim Il-Sung,
in 1994.
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- Voting took place in festive mood, with singing and dancing
and decorated polling booths, KCNA said,
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- Soldiers cast ballots "with loyalty and determination
to more firmly prepare themselves as stalwart fighters," it said.
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- They "loudly sang songs of revolution and danced
with joy," the news agency added.
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- Though the SPA lacks teeth, Kim Jong-Il used previous
elections in 1998 to pack the legislative chamber with younger followers,
sidelining a group of seniors in their 80s into the background in a generational
shift to consolidate his leadership.
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- North Korean experts say Kim needs younger aides who
will help introduce more reforms aimed at reviving North Korea's moribund
economy.
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- From July last year Kim introduced limited economic reforms,
freeing wages and prices previously controlled under the socialist command
economy.
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- State rationing of necessities has since been phased
out, with people allowed to increase their wages if they lift profits.
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- Such measures, however, may have backfired on the Stalinist
leadership as economic conditions deteriorated after the nuclear crisis
flared in October when Washington accused Pyongyang of running a clandestine
atomic program based on enriched uranium.
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