North Korea holds one-candidate election

North Koreans have voted in the country’s first ever elections since Kim Jong-un came to power in 2011, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

The local elections held on Sunday saw 91 per cent of eligible voters participate as of 0500 GMT, according to State news agency KCNA.

North Korea is using the elections to pick deputies at provincial, city and county assembly levels.

In the last elections, held in 2011, over 28,000 deputies to local people’s assemblies were elected.

Reports indicate that there will be only one candidate on the ballot for each post, selected by the governing coalition and closely overseen by Kim’s Workers’ Party.

It is expected that all the votes were in favour of the proposed candidates.

“There are two ballot boxes in voting venues; one is for ‘yes’ and the other is for ‘no’. Nobody dare to put his or her ballot into the ‘no’ box,” said Dae Young-kim, a South Korean reporter.

He said that although democratic in name, the elections are in practice a foregone conclusion.

“It is actually a show for the public,” he said. “The usual expected response to voting is 98 per cent.”

Kim Jong-un took over power from his father Kim Jong-il who died on December 17, 2011.

The last local elections, which were held under Kim Jong-il’s rule in July 2011, had a 99.82 per cent voter turnout rate and were seen as a path to facilitating support for the leadership succession process.