|
|
|
|
Democracy,
Pyongyang-style
By Andrei
Lankov
SEOUL - Pyongyang watchers have an
enviable lot: they always have something to talk
about. North Korea never stops providing fodder
for the rumor mill. Even if the exact meaning of
many strange and inexplicable actions will remain
a mystery for decades, it's great fun in looking
for interpretations. Over the past month North
Korea has been especially active, and produced
quite a few topics to ponder. One the most recent
was a statement that the session of the Supreme
People's Assembly (expected to convene on March 9)
would be delayed until further notice. As usual,
the Pyongyang authorities said they had just
obediently followed "the requests made by deputies
to the SPA in all domains of the socialist
construction". They did not explain, however, why
the deputies suddenly made such requests.
We still don't know. And it still hasn't
met.
What is the Supreme People's
Assembly? Ostensibly, it is the North Korean
parliament. It is elected through popular vote
even though, as we'll see, the vote is cast in a
very particular, idiosyncratic way. The SPA
approves the nation's laws and budget and confirms
cabinet appointments. Like other "legislatures" in
communist countries, it always votes unanimously,
with all government proposals being approved
without a single dissenting voice. It meets only
twice a year, with each session lasting merely a
few days, so the bills are prepared elsewhere, and
voted on without any meaningful discussion. A
person who is ready to waste time on reading
boring and repetitive speeches of the delegates
soon discovers that most speeches have nothing to
do with the bills under discussion. The members
usually use this opportunity to tell about the
love and loyalty their constituencies allegedly
feel toward the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il as well as
to report the heroic feats of labor carried out in
their native districts.
Do communist
countries need parliaments at all? This is a good
question, since of the manifold symbolic
institutions of a communist state, its parliament
is probably the most symbolic and most
meaningless. Obviously, we are dealing with
another surviving Stalinist tradition. When in
1936 the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin needed to
present a facade of democracy (a necessary
prerequisite for a broad anti-fascist alliance he
was planning at the time), he devised a type of
"rubber-stamping parliament" that would have some
superficial similarities to authentic parliaments
while being completely impotent as an institution.
Its structure was eventually emulated across the
entire communist world. All communist
"legislatures" (if the word is applicable) lacked
even shadow power, but few of them were so clearly
symbolic as the North Korean SPA. And in a few
cases the underlying lies were blatant.
The history of the SPA can be traced back
to late 1946, when it was decided to hold the
first elections in the North, to create a body
known as the People's Assembly. Of course, the
elections were to follow the Soviet prototype,
based on two major principles. One of these
principles is quite common in democracies: "one
voter, one vote". Another one is quite peculiar:
"one seat, one candidate". All candidates were
pre-selected by the authorities, so the voters had
a choice of either supporting a single available
candidate or voting against him or her - but
without the option of choosing another person.
To explain this obviously non-democratic
arrangement, the communist regimes employed a fine
piece of political demagogy. It was explained that
the Communist Party and the "non-party masses"
together formed an "electoral alliance". Since
virtually everybody in the country was either a
communist or a member of the "non-party masses",
there were no reasons to have other candidates. If
in a particular country there were other parties
(as was the case in North Korea), they "joined"
the communist-led alliance.
In practice,
the list of candidates was approved by the party
bureaucracy. A Soviet joke of the early 1980s
(when this writer was in his youth) wryly captures
the spirit of the system: "Is it possible to
predict the results of the elections to the
Supreme Soviet [state parliament] of the USSR
[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics] in 2000? No.
Why not? Because the Communist Party Central
Committee has compiled the lists of deputies only
until 1999."
How were these candidates
selected? Somewhat surprisingly, we know how the
mechanics worked in the case of the first North
Korean "legislature", the People's Assembly that
was elected in early 1947. Colonel-General
Terentii Shtykov, the supreme supervisor of the
Soviet-sponsored state-building in North Korea,
had some unusual habits: this ruthless and
brilliant self-didact scrupulously kept a diary in
which he recorded major events of his political
life - and he did so with remarkable frankness.
This diary was eventually discovered by
historians.
From Shtykov's diary we know
that on December 19, 1946, Shtykov called a
meeting with two other Soviet generals. The
participants discussed the composition of the
future North Korean legislature. It is worth
mentioning that no Koreans took part in the
discussions (so much for the now-popular thesis
about "self-rule" allegedly promoted by the
Soviets in the North - an idea increasingly
powerful among South Korean left-leaning
historians). The generals decided that the
assembly would consist of 231 members, and
distributed the seats among the parties. The
ruling Korean Workers Party was given 35% of the
places, the the Ch'ondogyo Party and the
Democratic Party - two puppet parties already
under communist control - were to receive 15% each
(equality!). Thirty-five percent of the members
were to have no party affiliation. It was good
math: one-third to the communists, one-third to
their junior partners and one-third to the
"non-party masses".
In their wisdom, the
generals even took care of women, whose
representation was fixed at 15%. The social origin
of the future deputies was also pre-determined: 40
workers, 50 peasants, 45 intellectuals, 10
traders, seven entrepreneurs, 10 priests, and 10
craftsmen (the remaining seats were probably
supposed to go to the party bureaucrats).
Obviously, the orders were later delivered to the
nascent Korean bureaucracy to enact. We do not
have documents showing how it was actually done.
But the outcome of the elections speaks for
itself. If we have a look at the actual
composition of the 1947 People's Assembly, we can
see that the above-mentioned Soviet instructions
were followed with only minor deviations.
The 1947 elections had another
peculiarity. There were different ballot boxes for
voting "for" and "against" the pre-selected
candidate (white and black respectively). Of
course, officials could easily spot those who
dared to approach black boxes. Avoiding
participation in the elections was also dangerous:
everybody understood that an absentee tried to
avoid not the elections per se, but the necessity
to vote for a government-selected candidate. This
"black-white box" system continued until the late
1950s.
The People's Assembly acted as a
rubber-stamping body, obediently and unanimously
voting for the bills drafted by the government and
the party with the necessary approval of the
Soviet supervisors. In November 1947 the People's
Assembly began to draw up a constitution for the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The
draft was first sent to Moscow, where Stalin
himself edited it (of course, this fact remained a
secret until very recently).
Meanwhile,
the Republic of Korea was proclaimed in the South
and Pyongyang decided to organize alternative
elections. There was an important peculiarity in
this exercise: the North-sponsored elections had
to be presented as nationwide. In other words,
Pyongyang insisted that its parliament would be
elected by all Koreans, including the Southerners.
This would strengthen its claim to being the sole
legitimate government of all of Korea, not just
its northern part.
As was usual at that
time, this rather bizarre idea initially came from
Moscow. On April 24, 1948, the Soviet Politburo
authorized a cable to Pyongyang: "If in South
Korea separate elections are held and a [separate]
South Korean government is organized, Comrade
Shtykov will have to recommend to Comrade Kim
Il-sung [North Korea's founder and leader] to
convene a special session of the People's Assembly
of North Korea to adopt the following decisions:
a) until the unification of Korea the draft
[constitution] of the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea, adopted by the April session of the
People's Assembly, should be considered effective
only for the territory of North Korea; b)
according to the constitution, elections should be
held for the Supreme People's Assembly of Korea."
As we know, this scenario was strictly followed -
how could it be otherwise?
On August 25,
1948, the elections for the Supreme People's
Assembly indeed took place. The elections were
alleged to have taken place in the South as well.
These "clandestine elections" were presented as a
"two-stage ballot". First, each South Korean
region allegedly elected representatives who then
would meet in the city of Haeju, in the North, to
elect the 360 members who would represent the
southern provinces in the DPRK Supreme People's
Assembly.
Pyongyang asserted that 77.52%
of all South Korean voters took part in the
exercise. This figure was clearly fantastic; with
the exception of a few areas where the left was
especially strong, no South Korean ever cast his
or her vote. In the North, the alleged
participation rate was even higher - 99.97% of all
registered voters, close to the normal Stalinist
standard. However, in the late 1950s when North
Korea began to steer itself away from Moscow, this
old pattern began to appear dangerously moderate,
even revisionist. If merely 99.97% took part in
the vote, what about the remaining 0.03%? Were
they opposing the state and party? No, it could
not be possible!
Thus the 1962 elections
demonstrated to the admiring world that the North
Korean regime had reached a truly unprecedented
level of popularity. According to the official
data, in the 1962 elections 100% of the registered
voters took part in the elections, and all of them
voted for the officially approved candidate. This
system continued. For decades to come the DPRK
boasted the world's highest level of electoral
activity and government support - 100.0%
participation, 100.0% approval. No other communist
country ever claimed anything like it. Of course,
these figures gave the entire exercise a
farce-like quality, but who cared? This 100%
system lasted until the 1989 elections, when the
approval level suddenly dropped to the marginally
more plausible 99.9%, that is, to the communist
camp's standard level.
On voting day, the
North Koreans are not supposed to vote when it is
convenient for them. They arrive at polling
stations in the morning, and form long queues
awaiting their turn. While waiting, they might be
entertained by musicians or art troupes who give
them yet another opportunity to listen to songs
about the Great Leader Kim Il-sung, his son, the
Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, and other members of the
blessed Kim family. They also are entertained with
skits about the happy life the Korean people lead
under the wise guidance of these extraordinary
leaders. Then the voters are called inside,
usually according to the order in which their
names appear in the register. Once inside the
polling station, they present identification, and
take the ballot paper. Then they make a deep bow
to the portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il
and proceed to cast their ballots.
The
Dear Leader Kim Jong-il followed the steps of his
predecessors, including Stalin. Like them, he is a
member of of the Supreme People's Assembly, of
course. But no outsider, including an overwhelming
majority of North Koreans, knows the location of
the mysterious "No 642 District", which the great
man represents. In this regard he is more
secretive than other communist strongmen, the
whereabouts of whose constituencies at least were
known.
In spite of all these peculiar and
bizarre features, North Korean officialdom always
kept up appearances. In the postwar period, the
elections (whether the 100% elections or the
merely 99.9% elections) took place at regular
intervals, with the most recent elections being
held on August 3, 2003. The SPA also has always
held its sessions on time. Even though Kim Jong-il
was gradually pushing aside the party, another
pillar of the traditional Soviet system, he kept
up appearances with the SPA. Hence the current
development - the unexplained delay in convening
the SPA - is truly unprecedented. Even if the real
meaning of the SPA is zero, as everybody has known
for years, what does this postponement really
mean? Well, maybe we'll learn this soon. Or maybe
not ...
Dr Andrei Lankov is a
lecturer in the faculty of Asian Studies, China
and Korea Center, Australian National University.
He graduated from Leningrad State University with
a PhD in Far Eastern History and China, with
emphasis on Korea, and his thesis focused on
factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He has published
books and articles on Korea and North Asia. He is
currently on leave, teaching at the Kookmin
University, Seoul.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
Asian Sex Gazette Korean Sex News
|
|
|
