South Korea is currently filled with excitement over its April general elections. The newspapers and news shows are plastered with party platforms and the activities of candidates for the 22nd National Assembly. As it happens, North Korea is also supposed to hold elections this year for representatives of its rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA). The five-year term of representatives in the 14th SPA will end on Mar. 10.
No indications of the election
Precedent from the 14th SPA suggests that the political calendar for the 15th SPA ought to proceed as follows: (1) elections of SPA members announced in early January, (2) general elections held around Mar. 11, (3) first session of 15th SPA announced around Mar. 22, (4) and opening ceremony held around Apr. 12. That would be followed by other major events, including the re-election of the chair of the State Affairs Commission and the amendment of the North Korean constitution.
But though we are already in mid-February, there are no indications of that happening. That’s rather curious, not least considering that some of the administrative preparations, such as drawing up a list of electors, should already be complete following the elections of representatives to regional assemblies on Nov. 26, 2023.
Reasons for the delay
The biggest reason for the delay of the SPA elections is likely the issue of adding a territorial clause through a constitutional amendment, which is one of the key follow-up measures to Kim Jong Un’s “two states” narrative. It is the SPA, after all, that possesses the authority to amend the constitution. That makes the SPA’s upcoming session of particular importance.
North Korea has been bolstering cohesion at home and stoking tensions abroad by lobbing incendiary rhetoric and test-launching missiles as it focuses on implementing the measures called for in Kim’s speech. Even though that has created a sense of crisis severe enough for the foreign press to raise the possibility of war breaking out on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea’s actual provocations have been largely similar in intensity to those of the past. Thus, we appear to be in a lull of sorts.
But after the constitution is amended to add a territorial provision based on the “two states” narrative, all bets are off. More specifically, North Korea will have to respond immediately, and more forcefully than in the past, in the event of any territorial friction with the South.