Political Parties in North Korea - Political Parties and Elections

Political Parties and Elections

See also: Elections in North Korea

According to the constitution, North Korea is a Democratic Republic and the Supreme People's Assembly and provincial People's Assemblies are elected by direct universal suffrage and secret ballot. Suffrage is guaranteed to all citizens aged 17 and over. In reality, elections in North Korea are non-competitive and have only single candidate races. Those who want to vote against the sole candidate on the ballot must go to a special booth to cross out the candidate's name before dropping it into the ballot box—an act which, according to many North Korean defectors, is far too risky to even contemplate.

All elected candidates are members of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, a popular front dominated by the WPK. The two minor parties in the coalition are the Chondoist Chongu Party and the Korean Social Democratic Party; they also have a few elected officials. The WPK exercises direct control over the candidates selected for election by members of the other two parties.

e • d Summary of the 8 March 2009 North Korea Supreme People's Assembly election results
List Seats
Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland

Read more about this topic:  Political Parties In North Korea

Famous quotes containing the words political parties, political, parties and/or elections:

    “Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves,—sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “We ask for no statistics of the killed,
    For nothing political impinges on
    This single casualty, or all those gone,
    Missing or healing, sinking or dispersed,
    Hundreds of thousands counted, millions lost.”
    —Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)

    “The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.”
    —Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

    “Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.”
    —Gore Vidal (b. 1925)