In a likely prelude to leader Kim Jong Il’s rise to the president’s office, North Koreans elected him and hundreds of others to the country’s parliament Sunday. Less than an hour after voting ended, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency announced Kim’s election to the Supreme People’s Assembly, the rubber-stamp legislature.
Since the 1994 death of his father Kim Il Sung, the 56-year-old son has been running the reclusive communist country as the supreme military commander and head of the ruling Workers’ Party. But he has yet to assume full formal power by taking over the title of president. Kim Jong Il’s assumption of the presidency will complete the first hereditary power succession in North Korea.
