This is a resource blogpost. This post won't be fun for reading. This post may help people searching the internet for useful information.

In a previous blogpost on the (lack of) democracy in North Korea, I said:

Virtually all estimates of the partisan breakdown of elections before 1990 -- including those cited by defenders of North Korea -- ultimately come from Nohlen Grotz Hartmann 2001, an anti-communist Western source.

That's correct.

Does Leftist Critic have a non-Western source for North Korean election data?

No.

If you've ever seen a graph of North Korean elections which looks like this it came from Excel 2005:

Then it came from "Elections in the “Juche” state: democracy in the DPRK" (2017, Google Doc format, archive.is link), by Leftist Critic (1.1k followers).

For every single election before 1990, their citation is Nohlen Grotz Hartmann 2001:

(1948 election) [7] Elections in Asia and the Pacific: A Data Handbook: Vol. II: South East Asia, East Asia, and South Pacific, ed. Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz, and Christof Hartmann, 395-396, 398, 403, 405, 407;

(1957 election) [20] Elections in Asia and the Pacific: A Data Handbook, 396, 398-399, 404;

(1962 election) [21] Elections in Asia and the Pacific, p. 157, 404.

(1967 election) [no citation given, clearly comes from Elections in Asia and the Pacific]

(1975 election) [40] There is a delineation of parties shown on page 405 of Elections in Asia and the Pacific

(1986 election) [55] Elections in Asia and the Pacific, p. 398

(1990 election) [59] Elections in Asia and the Pacific, p. 406.

(1998 election) [70] Elections in Asia and the Pacific, p. 406.

I made this blogpost for the sole purpose of aiding Google Images Reverse Image. I've included every election graph from the blogpost above, plus its title, in hopes of providing people better information on the lack of democracy in North Korea.

Composition of SPA in Sept. 1948

Distribution of SPA in Aug. 1957

Distribution of the SPA in Oct. 1962

Distribution of the SPA in Sept. 1967

Distribution of the SPA in April 1990

Distribution of the SPA in July 1998

Distibution of the SPA in March 2009

Distribution of SPA in March 2014

Do other socialist writers have better, non-Western election sources?

Here's a few other sources I've seen that defend North Korea as democratic. Do they have better citations for early North Korean elections?

• "Is North Korea A Monarchy?" (2022, archive.is link), by Rowan Valvona -- Does not make any citations of earlier elections at all.

• "Socialism and Democracy in the DPRK" (2017, archive.is link), by Write To Rebel -- Does not make any citations of earlier elections at all.

• "The Democratic Structure of the DPRK", by Lalkar -- Does not make any citations of earlier elections at all.

In short: No, there are no better, non-Western sources for North Korean elections before 1990.

Conclusion and shilling

In short: If you cite any North Korean elections before 1990, you're probably citing the CIA, lol.

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