Seoul, March 18 (ANI): North Korea’s 2026 parliamentary vote resulted in what state media described as a near-unanimous mandate for Kim Jong Un and the ruling coalition. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), cited by Yonhap, reported that the Workers’ Party of Korea and its partners won 99.93 percent of the vote and secured every seat in the 15th Supreme People’s Assembly, with turnout said to be 99.99 percent. Voting took place on March 15.
The assembly will hold its inaugural session to elect state leadership and consider substantial revisions to the Socialist Constitution, following last month’s Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party. KCNA said delegates will formally address electing the president of State Affairs of the DPRK and ‘‘revising and supplementing’’ the constitution. Observers will watch for any language explicitly defining the two Koreas as hostile and for announced shifts in external policy.
The session is widely expected to re-elect Kim as supreme leader and head of the State Affairs Commission. Although the Supreme People’s Assembly is usually viewed as a body that formalizes party decisions, it remains the official forum for approving leadership and legal changes.
Yonhap reported significant personnel turnover, with more than 70 percent of deputies replaced from the previous term. The new list of 687 deputies includes close aide Jo Yong-won, who is tipped to chair the assembly’s standing committee, as well as Kim Yo-jong and Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui. Former chairman Choe Ryong-hae, removed at the recent party congress, does not appear on the new roster.
KCNA noted that 0.07 percent of ballots were cast against candidates; state media presents the presence of dissenting votes as evidence of a right to object, but analysts say North Korean elections are widely regarded as a non-secret formality. (ANI)
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