Today, CNN has an article up about North Korea holding parliamentary elections today (687 seats on the Supreme People’s Assembly)  because godress communists rike their erections on Sundays. [CNN] Yonhap points out that technically elections should’ve been held in 2008, but was delayed for about 1/2-year, presumably due to KJI’s illness (Wikipedia’s unupdated page says that elections will be held in 2008). [Yonhap, Wikipedia]

Turnout is expected to be around 99.99%, with pro-government parties projected to win 687 seats. I’m not even going to cite a source for the preceding sentence.

You might ask why we care. This “legislature” meets for just few days a year and has zero power, but it’s still useful to know about it because its membership is synonymous with the leading citizenry of the country. They are picked from all segments of North Korean society, and include the top elite leaders (KJI himself has a seat), Army brass, party leaders, and technocrats.

In this election, all the buzz is about whether KJI’s third and youngest son Kim Jong Un is going to become a member—currently he is thought of as the most likely successor, mostly following on KJI’s former personal sushi chef’s accounts about his private reflections regarding his sons, plus Yonhap’s unconfirmed report that he has directed the Worker’s Party to accept the third son as the successor.

So essentially we’re all excited to hear about any of the steps that would be taken to elevate & build consensus around him—being introduced into the parliament is a given, but the question is timing. This year’s candidate list has not been made available to the outside world, so all the observers are just madly speculating. The rumors about Jong Un being on the list aren’t spoken of very highly in the Yonhap article, reflecting the consensus view among Seoul’s leading Pyongyangologists that KJI’s more likely to follow a cautious path—first getting Jong Un connected with the military and getting its support, and then officially entering him into government once that agreement is reached. But if KJI’s really worried about the good Lord taking him away sometime real soon, we could see faster action—or perhaps he may decide that rushing will show weakness by way of making us expect him to die soon leaving an as-yet unprepared successor, and hence go at it real slow…

The Japanese sushi chef’s tell-all book was a real hit—the Cuban doctor should do it, too, like nao.

In closing, here is SMOKING GUN EVIDENCE that Kim Jong Il is in fact a minion controlled by the CFR, CIA, the international banking elite, etc. (much thanks to goons):

There's no being dead in the War Room

Perhaps L will treat you all with a roundup on the Fidel Castro deathwatch. *nudge*

Prof Shigemura says Kim was not seen in public for the 42 days after September 10, 2003, and in his book “The True Character of Kim Jong Il” claims the man that North Koreans refer to as the “Dear Leader” died of diabetes.

We were sort of excited but then learned here that this recent attention to the claim is because of an article [subscription required] in Shukan Gendai, a trashy “news” magazine whose claim to fame is having published nude photos of gold medal-winning Romanian gymnasts in their official team leotards. [We realize that the preceding sentence doesn't make sense; but the whole shitstorm involved the uniforms and some nude photos, related, somehow.] The Independent also ran a story on KJI today (on which Yonhap reported), but is characteristically far less bullish (or, has far less bullshit):

Speculation was mounting last night over the health of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il. He has not been seen in public for more than three weeks, and, according to a source who has seen intelligence reports, five Chinese physicians entered North Korea about a week ago and are still there.

But our guess is that KJI is still alive and well, since we haven’t yet heard of any reports of a secret plane flight from North Korea to Cuba.