North Korean leader Kim Il Sung was re-elected president by the Supreme People's Assembly, which opened Thursday in Pyongyang, North Korean radio said.
It was the fifth consecutive time the 78-year-old Kim was elected president since 1972, when the position was created, official Radio Pyongyang said. The dispatch was monitored in Tokyo.Kim Il Sung is the longest-governing ruler in the communist world and the object of a personality cult, which reveres him as "Great Leader."
His son, Kim Jong Il, has been groomed to succeed him in what would be the first communist dynasty.
The assembly is a rubber-stamp legislature that approves bills and policies proposed by the ruling Workers (Communist) Party and the administration.
Kim has led North Korea since 1945, when the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula ended and Korea was divided into capitalist South Korea and communist North Korea.
His paternalistic brand of communism, heavily reliant on Soviet-bloc aid, long stressed heavy industry and defense over the production of consumer products. Only recently have there been signs Pyongyang is trying to meet rising aspirations and make better clothing and household goods.
Kim's efforts to achieve Korean re-unification failed to bear fruit in spite of many proposals and counterproposals by the two sides.
Kim married twice. His first wife, who bore him two sons and a daughter, died in 1949. In 1950 he married Kim Seong-ae, who is chairwoman of the country's Women's League. They are said to have two sons and three daughters.