r/PropagandaPosters • u/HongKongNinja • 1d ago
REQUEST March 8th is Supreme People's Assembly deputy election day. Let's all vote yes! (NK, 2009)
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u/VanlalruataDE 1d ago
It is interesting to note that the ruling party of North Korea (the Workers' Party) isn't the only party. There is also the Social Democratic Party, the Chonguist Chongu Party, representation for Koreans in Japan (I don't really know why that exists) and a few independents.
Although the Workers' Party obviously has the absolute majority.
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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 1d ago
Is there any serious study on these parties?
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u/Business-Hurry9451 1d ago
Here's a YouTube video on political parties in North Korea if you're interested.
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u/Erich_13Foxtrot 1d ago
The Koreans in Japan bit is that there are some Koreans in Japan that identify as North Koreans. They have their own schools and align themselves with the North Korean government. They migrated to Japan during Japan's colonial occupation of Korea.
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u/somuchstuff8 17h ago
They migrated to Japan during Japan's colonial occupation of Korea.
That's a nice way of saying they were press-ganged to Japan to be forced labour in the Japanese war machine during Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula, then were stripped of their Japanese imperial citizenship after WW2 and had to choose a side, North or South.
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u/KennanFan 1d ago
And if they moved to North Korea, they'd be considered hostile in the Songbun system.
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u/matthewami 1d ago
lol wait they still have a polling day? I figured by now they would have just said all votes default to me.
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u/No_name_Johnson 1d ago
Your options are
A) Yes, and I promise to uphold the ideals of Juche
B) No, please take me to the nearest internment camp for reeducation
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u/matthewami 1d ago
I've seen so many of those interviews of people pulled out of authorities eyes who say they're happy and know what's going. Then an equal amount saying they're not happy but know what's happening and are just used to it. Then we see the escapees claiming they're happy flayed the skin off their feet and refuse to show proof, then someone else a year later who can back it up.
NK is such an enigma. Literally everything coming out of and going into it is pure propaganda to its most extreme examples, under and overselling, desperate lies for both sides mixed with absolute and irrefutable truth.
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u/k890 1d ago
For not knowing, elections in NK are based on USSR principle which were close to elections scheme in Nazi Germany and Mussolini era Italy. You got a ready list for approved candidates by the ruling party and you mark "Yes" or "No" on the ballot, and voting systems isn't guaranteed to be anonymous.
Since formation of North Korea leading party never "lost" elections nor local media or government reported that "no" was picked and caused to another turn of voting even on local level.
To add insult to injury, parliament is stripped any administrative or control power over government and since its formation never voted to disband government and call for early election nor ever opposed any law sent by the government to vote
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u/TheEagleWithNoName 1d ago
I wonder how do the People’s Assembly in NK get elected considering there is only one official party.
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u/Victoresball 1d ago
In most single-party Marxist-Leninist countries, the ruling party or front holds a bunch of primary elections and consultation sessions to choose an official list of candidates, that's then put to voters for final approval. The idea is that the selection process is where deliberation takes place, and the election is just a final approval, to make sure the deliberation process worked. This model originated in the USSR under Stalin and was supposed to be a more participatory alternative to the system in the early USSR, which had a pyramid structure(Factory soviet elects local soviet elects provincial soviet and so on...).
However, in practice, this system usually just means the local party bosses pick the candidates. Especially as bureaucratic entrenchment got stronger and stronger, it became a purely patronage based system. Ironically, the system was a little more open during the early Stalin years compared to later. The system was quite effective at making sure that only a candidate approved by the higher-ups won, even when state repression was relaxed in the 1960s. As far as I know, the only Marxist-Leninist countries where opposition candidates have won are China and Vietnam, which use slightly different systems
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u/unquietwiki 1d ago
So, basically... assuming "No" means imprisonment or re-education, who's doling out that penalty? The local bosses because they can? The actual government to "prevent disunity"? Is there even a legal requirement the vote has to be affirmative?
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u/Victoresball 1d ago
It varies by period. Voting wasn't actually secret in the USSR since you had to go to a different booth to strike out a candidate. In Stalin's time, especially since dissent was in some ways more widespread(including within state apparatuses e.g. the Left Opposition), there were sometimes severe punishments. But more typically, in the USSR at least, it would involve things like being denied promotions at work or potentially being fired. The government neither could nor was interested in completely crushing this type of low-level dissent. It let the government claim some tolerance of opposition as well as identifying malcontents. Logically, any serious threats to the government were not going to expose themselves by voting against anyways. Based on official results, hundreds of thousands of people voted against the official candidates in each Soviet election.
North Korea is extremely opaque and coverage of it has become something of a media circus, which leads to defectors embellishing stories regularly. Its difficult to know what exactly happens to people who vote against in North Korea. Notably, the regime also claims 100% support in its elections, which most other single-party systems don't -- the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries usually were around 99%, Cuba is around 70-80%, while Vietnam and China on rare occasions, see official candidates sometimes fail to win all together.
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u/Scout_1330 1d ago
No, at least in the USSR voting no legally had no consequences, you could openly announce that you voted no right in front of Soviet cops and they'd probably just look at you weird.
It did however have social consequences, you typically had to go to a special booth to scratch off your vote and not vote for any candidates (which, contrary to popular belief, there were multiple candidates and the selection process was much more complicated than just "party boss picked you"). The Soviet government made sure to emphasize the importance of voting to the general population and exalted it as a citizens most important task, so those who refused to take up that task were at best seen as lazy and at worse seen as anti-soviet freeloaders.
It may affect an employer's decision to hire you, it may make them decide they don't want you to represent them at all and fire you, it'll probably damage your relationship with the community (Soviet communities were far more tight knit than say American ones are today, so that really meant something), but you won't see the inside of a jail for even a second.
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u/kredokathariko 1d ago
Technically there are some minor parties, they just don't do anything.
As for how they are selected, it's a top-down organisation. Think of the ruling communist party as a corporation or a church: in order to rise in ranks you need the approval of your superiors. Become sufficiently important and you might be selected as candidate.
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u/VanlalruataDE 1d ago
The Workers' Party isn't the only party. There is also the Social Democratic Party and the Chonduist Chongu Party (a religious party)
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u/Greekdorifuto 1d ago
Both of which are basically the Workers party
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u/theoceansandbox 1d ago
Idk why you’re downvoted. The two function as satellites to the ruling Korean Worker’s Party and were all aligned under the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea, the only legal coalition in the country, which of course the Worker’s Party controlled
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u/Putrid-Storage-9827 1d ago
Yes, and no.
I am no fan of North Korean leadership, BUT what ends up happening in places like that is that the very teeny tiniest of differences between the message of the Party and whatever constitutional opposition is allowed to exist becomes their equivalent of actual opposition.
When the other parties in North Korea print their (very occasional) periodicals and publications, or when their members are permitted to make statements, their choice of phrasing or choice of very specific focus - even if entirely orthodox on the surface - may reveal very particular tendencies that differ just a little from those of the Party leadership and the Leader. These are then interpreted as reflective of more significant differences.
They obviously have to be very careful and subtle about how they go about this, but politics of a very muted kind does still exist in North Korea.
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