N. Korean Official Sent to Prison for Advocating 'Term-limit Presidency' While Drinking

A N. Korean official working at their Cabinet(executive branch) was imprisoned while criticizing current hereditary ruling system at a private gathering, according to on-line newsletter on N. Korea, according to 'Open N. Korea Dispatch(Yolin Bukkan Tongshin) on May. 18.

Quoting a source, it reported that a department chief at N. Korea's Cabinet said on May 10, "We will have no progress if one man(family) holds power as is the case now. We should have term-limit presidency as other countries do."

He continued, "If we do that, president would at least pretend to do his job initially, even though he won't for his entire term. People's livelihood would improve at least for the initial period. If we continue to follow the current way of daddy's rule followed by son's rule, only people will suffer," strongly criticizing the current hereditary system, according to the newsletter.

The official was said to be staying at a lodging in Shinuiju for conducting business with Chinese, and made this comment while drinking with two close friends.

Trickles of news coming out of N. Korea these days agree with you. There are small number of people who were in the same boat as Chia, and whose life depends on the survival of the regime, and a majority of elites who are quite unhappy with the current situation. Not that they want free democracy but they do want the country to be like current China. They know that their country is at the dead end for now.

Disaffected military contributed a lot to the success of uprising in Romania in 1989. That is probably one of the reasons why Chia Head is taking extra care of military, while simultaneously spying on them day and night.

Yes, and in the article below http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/lankov-nk-02202009171534.html

Lankov gives a good description of the "reformers" dilemma:

Q: We occasionally hear from defectors that there are reform-minded officials in the middle levels of the government and Party who realize that the whole system—political, economic, and everything else—has failed. Can these people, who have enough information to know how bad things are, have any influence over the long term?

A: In the long term, maybe, yes. But we shouldn't forget that once these mid-level people become high-ranking people—and this is a necessary precondition for them to have any influence—they acquire a vested interest in keeping the system going. Because if the system collapses, its leadership will be in trouble, and they know it. This is partially because their rule has been exceptionally brutal and, at the same time, economically very inefficient. So the major problem of the North Korean elite—maybe most of them, and probably Kim Jong Il himself—is that they understand very well that the system is not delivering, but they simply don't know what to do about it. They don't see any way out. They don’t have any exit option, and honestly I don’t know what can be done about this.

Q: The North Korean elite appear to be totally corrupt. Isn’t this kind of corruption ultimately going to have some impact on the people in power?

A: It is certain to have some impact. But once again, we don’t know when. In two years time? In twenty years time? There is no way to say. The old system has disintegrated, because, as you said, the corruption is on an unbelievable scale. Everything is corrupt. You can buy your way out of any trouble. There were a lot of things that could have brought you to an execution ground a few decades ago. Now, these are not a big deal if you can pay a sufficient bribe. The victims of the current crackdown on people crossing the border are only the starving or hungry farmers. Professionals, smugglers, and traffickers have absolutely no problem with paying the bribes to get across. Their belief in the system is gone, but God knows how long this will continue. In the long term, the system is not sustainable. Everybody knows it, and maybe the leaders of the system understand it, but their major goal is to die peacefully in their own beds. Therefore, every year of their high life-style sipping Hennessy cognac is a small victory. They feel that the longer they stay, the better—even if they understand that in the long run they will be out of power. And many of them hope that the system will outlast their own life spans.

No outside players can foresee when and how N. Korean regime will go down. Of course, there would be a few general scenarios, and its collapse will follow one of them. However, beyond such a generality, specific turn of events would be nearly impossible to pin down.

After all, we have a system tightly wound up and remain so for many decades, and it would be the first time any real change would occur in N. Korea if the current regime goes down.

People envision some kind of manageable soft landing, but I doubt it. It is like wishing for a soft landing of economy prior to the onset of subprime crisis in 2007. Unpredictable and far-reaching turn of events will await us.

For sure it will be a collapse, NK can not be adapted to a market economy in many years. The best option for an individual NK citizen would be to escape from the country, but South Korea or China can not take care of them. However, the majority would not be able to live on the salaries they would get.

Unfortunately, the best strategy is probably to keep NK as a semi-closed society for some 10 years and gradually lift the constraints on their economy in a managed way to train them in market economy. But, such a transition will not be stable and the probability of a total collapse with 24 million starving Koreans is very high. Furthermore is it ethical to keep them in a prison like situation for 10 years? No, so the result is a quick collapse, unless they start with an internal market reform today. Then the collapse will come after 2 -3 years, but the population would be more prepared to take care of themselves.

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