SEOUL, Aug. 6 (UPI) — North Korea’s July elections were used in propaganda to highlight the stability of Kim Jong Un’s regime and to dispute international claims the leader is losing control of the country, according to an analyst.
In a report published on 38 North on Thursday, a Johns Hopkins University website dedicated to North Korea issues, Alexandre Mansourov wrote the Korean Workers’ Party used the July 19 elections to showcase Kim’s achievements in the past three years.
“The country’s July 19 electoral process for provincial, city and county people’s assembly members was the first of its kind since Kim Jong Un has assumed power,” Mansourov wrote.
The analyst said the July elections are not democratic in any “traditional” sense and like the local elections under former leader Kim Jong Il, the event is held to rubber-stamp predetermined candidates into official positions.
“By conducting the polls, party apparatchiks executed an important political task required to maintain the regime’s procedural legitimacy under the new leader,” Mansourov said in his analysis.
North Korea’s state media has claimed 99.97 percent of voters participated in the elections to pick 28,452 deputies.
Mansourov said Kim replaced 55 percent of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly members in the past, making it likely the July elections replaced roughly the same percentage of local delegates – a substantial increase from elections under Kim Jong Il who replaced at most 46 percent of delegates.
The elections occurred in North Korea when Pyongyang’s Propaganda and Agitation Department is intensifying Kim Jong Un idolization – but the state is enforcing control with other policies.
On Friday, North Korea’s KCNA announced the country would no longer fall in the same time zone as Japan starting Aug. 15, the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule. Official time in North Korea is to be set to 30 minutes behind Seoul and Tokyo, in a symbolic move toward commemorating North Korea’s independence, Yonhap reported.
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