By Choi Sung-jin
North Korea’s state media outlet reported about the parliamentary elections in South Korea for the first time on Friday, saying the ruling party suffered a humiliating setback.
“South Korea held the parliamentary elections on Wednesday,” said the (North) Korean Central News Agency. “The ruling Saenuri Party suffered a crushing defeat, losing many seats to its political opposition, such as the Minjoo Party of Korea and the People’s Party.”
The KCNA added that the election made MPK the largest party, and the Saenuri leadership acknowledged defeat and offered to resign en masse.
It was the first time that the North’s government media reported about the South’s parliamentary polls. The state news agency, however, delivered only the facts in four sentences without carrying analysis or interpretation.
A spokesman of the North’s federation of educational and cultural workers, a pseudo-governmental group, issued a statement and said, “The Saenuri Party’s humiliating setback was the South Korean people’s stern judgment on Park Geun-hye and her treacherous followers, who suffocated progressivism, democracy, justice and truth by wielding the sword of fascist oppression,” the KCNA reported.
Earlier, a pro-North daily published in Japan also said, “The Park Geun-hye administration, which is in crisis because it has failed with the economy, popular livelihood and the inter-Korean relationship, attempted to win the election by raising inter-Korean tension under the pretext of North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test and launch of its artificial satellite, but the South Korean people dealt a stern judgment to the politics of treason.”