North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was unanimously re-elected to the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, state media said on Monday, in elections closely watched for signs of a political shift or hints the autocratic leader was grooming a successor.
But none of Kim’s three sons was among the 686 other legislators announced by state media late on Monday. There had been reports his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, was running for a seat in Sunday’s uncontested election, which analysts said would have been a strong sign he was being prepped to inherit power.
Turnout on Sunday was 99.98 percent, with all voters backing the sole candidate running in their constituency, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
The poll had been scheduled for last year around the time Kim Jong-il, 67, reportedly suffered a stroke and underwent brain surgery, sparking fears that his sudden death without publicly naming a successor could trigger instability in the nuclear-armed country.
North Korea denies he was ill and did not provide a reason for delaying the poll by more than six months.
The new assembly is expected to convene early next month to reconfirm Kim as leader in his capacity as chairman of the all-powerful National Defense Commission. Experts say the North may then push ahead with a long-range missile test to celebrate.
Elections in North Korea are largely a formality since candidates are widely believed to be hand-picked by Kim and the ruling Workers’ Party, and only one candidate runs in each constituency.
North Korea’s parliament meets only a few times a year to rubber-stamp bills vetted by the ruling party. But lawmakers also fill key party, government and military posts, making the list of legislators a telling indicator of how Kim’s third term will take shape, analysts say.
Experts predicted Kim would fill the incoming assembly with technocrats and finance-savvy figures, hoping to revive the country’s shattered economy as the nation faces international pressure to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.
The past two elections have resulted in significant turnover. The 1998 balloting was Kim’s formal ascension to power; he had inherited the country’s leadership upon his father’s death four years earlier but waited for the poll to clear out nearly two-thirds of the assembly’s lawmakers.
Analyst Koh Yu-hwan of Seoul’s Dongguk University said Kim may have been reluctant to openly favor his 26-year-old son Kim Jong-un for fear of triggering an “internal power struggle” among those vying to succeed him as leader.
But Paik Hak-soon of the private Sejong Institute think tank said it was too early to rule the youngest son out as a successor.
“Even though Kim Jong-un wasn’t in the list, we cannot say he has dropped out of the successor candidate list,” he said.
Among the names announced on Monday were Kim Yong-nam, the North’s No. 2 official and the ceremonial head of state; Jang Song-taek, head of the Workers’ Party’s administrative department and Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law; and Kang Sok-ju, the first vice foreign minister.
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