SEOUL, March 23, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - North Korea's rubber-stamp legislature has re-elected Kim Jong Un as president of state affairs, state media reported on Monday. Kim's reappointment as head of the authoritarian nation's highest policymaking and governing body, the State Affairs Commission, was announced by the state news agency KCNA. Critics argue that elections in North Korea are pre-determined and designed to give the country's leadership a veneer of democratic legitimacy. "The Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK reelected Comrade Kim Jong Un as President of the State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at the First Session, the first state affairs activity of its 15th term, on March 22," KCNA reported. Kim is the third-generation ruler of the nuclear-armed state founded by his grandfather Kim Il Sung in 1948.
