North Korea Reports Kim Jong Un's Party Secures 99.93% in Parliamentary Elections Amid Near-Perfect Turnout
North Korean state media announced that the ruling Workers' Party of Korea and its allied candidates claimed 99.93% of the vote in the March 15 parliamentary elections, securing all 687 seats in the 15th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA). Officials reported a voter turnout of 99.99%, with only a minuscule 0.07% of ballots cast against the pre-approved candidates. The elections, held to select deputies for the country's rubber-stamp parliament, followed last month's Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party, where Kim Jong Un was re-elected as General Secretary. Each constituency featured a single candidate endorsed by the regime, giving voters the nominal choice to approve the ballot unchanged or cross out the name in disapproval—a system long criticized internationally as lacking genuine competition or secrecy. State outlets like the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) hailed the results as a "demonstration of the monolithic unity" of the North Korean people and ...