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SEOUL: North Korea will hold parliamentary elections in March, state media announced Wednesday, in a move analysts said would likely usher in changes aimed at preparing for a post-Kim Jong-Il era.
The announcement comes after South Korean officials said on Tuesday that Pyongyang had replaced almost a quarter of the North's cabinet, in a shake-up aimed at reviving the communist nation's economy and promoting younger talent.
The issue of who will succeed Kim has been the subject of intense interest ever since the 66-year-old reportedly suffered a stroke in August, mostly because he has not publicly named a successor to rule the nuclear-armed state.
The reclusive leader also has a history of diabetes and heart disease, according to South Korean officials.
The elections for the 12th Supreme People's Assembly would be held on March 8, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said. Those aged 17 and over can vote in the direct election, but the process is strictly controlled.
Candidates are picked by either the government or the ruling communist party, and it is very common for only one candidate to run for each electoral seat and for voters to cast a yes-or-no ballot, experts say.
North Korean media boasted a 99.9-per-cent voter turnout and a 100-per-cent level of support for every candidate in the previous election.
Professor Yang Moo-Jin from Seoul's University of North Korean Studies said he expected the election to make "a generational change" in the North's military-centred political structures with a post-Kim future in mind.
"North Korean Supreme People's Assembly deputies are usually appointed to key posts in the party and military after the elections. Kim Jong-Il may try to have a shake-up in personnel and institutional systems," he said.
Elections for the rubber-stamp parliament did not take place in 2008 when its five-year term expired, amid speculation about Kim's health.
Officials in Seoul and Washington have said that Kim suffered a stroke in August, although Seoul officials say he made a good recovery.
"The election announcement means that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has recuperated from his illness to the degree that political schedules can get back to normal," said Yang.
A South Korean government think-tank said in a report last week that North Korea would use the elections to promote younger economic experts and lay the groundwork for whoever succeeds Kim.
The Institute for National Security Strategy, an arm of the National Intelligence Service, said that the current Songun, or Army First, policy was expected gradually to give way to more pragmatic policies.
Analysts in Seoul said the North, which suffered a devastating famine in the 1990s, was also hoping to bring about an economic recovery.
Pyongyang on Monday and Tuesday held mass rallies across the nation, including a 100,000-strong gathering in the capital, to launch a drive to rebuild the economy, state media said.
And in a New Year joint editorial, the secretive state stressed its "far-reaching target to open the gate to a thriving nation" in 2012, the centenary of the birth of its late founding leader Kim Il-Sung.
North Korea, which operates on a planned economy, was ravaged by a famine that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the mid to late-1990s and still relies on foreign aid to feed millions.
Outdated facilities, a crippling energy shortage and a prolonged nuclear standoff with the West have complicated efforts for economic revival.
In 2002 the regime introduced limited economic reforms but rolled them back three years later, apparently fearful of a loss of control.
Late last year the North clamped down on fast-growing free markets for fear they could loosen the regime's grip, observers said.
- AFP/yb
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