With the elections of deputies to provincial (city under the direct jurisdiction of the government), city (district) and county people’s assemblies coming near at hand, streets and villages across the country were dressed up in festive attire.

Voter rolls were posted in constituencies and election slogans and posters put up on the streets, lightening the atmosphere.

Seeing the streets garbed in holiday attire, Jo Myong Nam, leader of machine workteam No. 1 of the tool workshop of the Pyongyang Textile Machine Factory, remembered his childhood when he visited the polling station following his father and mother. At that time a dance was also held in the whole neighbourhood, he said. The innocent child asked his parents what kind of holiday it was that day. They answered: “It is a holiday when we elect our representative by ourselves.”

Jo is an ordinary machine operator who has worked hard to carry out his production plan and maintain equipment in his charge properly guided by clean conscience while operating Hero Lathe No. 26 since he began to work at the factory after being demobbed more than ten years ago.

He was elected deputy to the Supreme People’s Assembly in 2019 and has since been engaged in running state affairs.

He would often say that ordinary workers and farmers are masters of the country, but he felt as if he was dreaming when he was elected deputy, recalled Jo.

“At the factory all employees congratulated me, saying that a fellow worker in the same workshop was elected deputy to the Supreme People’s Assembly. And when I entered my neighbourhood, all the residents were very pleased that a deputy to the Supreme People’s Assembly was produced in their village as if it were their own happy event. My mother, who had worked honestly at a factory all her life, also asked me if it was true that I became a deputy to the Supreme People’s Assembly.”

From then on, he frequently visited the units in his charge to learn about the problems arising in the living of the residents and took measures in an effort to fulfil the expectations of the people. And when he visited them, the residents would heartily welcome “our deputy” and freely open their heart.

Whenever he heard the people’s sincere call and passed the policies for the people at the Supreme People’s Assembly sessions by raising the certificate of deputy, he felt anew the weight the certificate of deputy carries.

Treasuring it as the “certificate for the people”, he worked hard for the prosperity of the country and happiness of the people with honesty and clear conscience of the working class.

In these years he attended the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the 90th anniversary of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA) and had photos taken with the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un and was awarded the commemorative coin bearing the image of President Kim Il Sung on the occasion of his 110th birth anniversary.

It is really a great pride to live as a deputy of the people, Jo said, adding that he would put in sincere efforts for the people’s country and world till the last moments of his life whatever he does and wherever he works.