North Korea confirmed Tuesday a near-perfect turnout for its parliamentary "election" in which single candidates - approved by the political elite - stood uncontested in 687 constituencies across the country. "According to the election returns available, 99.97 percent of all the voters registered... took part in the election," the North's official KCNA news agency said.
Of the votes cast on Sunday, "100 percent" were for the unopposed candidates, a fact KCNA said demonstrated "the absolute support and trust of all voters" for the government. The wholly stage-managed election for the North's rubber-stamp Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) included a win for paramount leader Kim Jong-Un, who notably managed a perfect turnout in his own constituency. The parliamentary poll is held every five years and turnout this time was actually slightly down on 2009, when 99.98 percent cast their ballots.
Each constituency had only one state-sanctioned candidate and voters were only allowed to mark "yes" on a ballot sheet in a closely-monitored polling booth. Many top Korean officials are members of the parliament, and the election is an opportunity to see if any established names are absent. An initial count by South Korea's Yonhap news agency suggested that more than half of the assembly will comprise first-time deputies, but analysts said there were no great surprises among the changes.
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