Dear voters,

Workers and officials of the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine, who are working with devotion for the country’s prosperity at an outpost of our self-supporting economy,

Comrades,

Today, here at the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine under the Sunchon Area Youth Coal-mining Complex, one of the leading coal mines in our country, I voted for a representative to the supreme power organ of our state.

I feel very pleased to have voted for a working-class candidate on the day of election to the Supreme People’s Assembly, the 15th of its kind in the history of our Republic, and to be seeing you, coal miners, whom I have always respected in my mind.

I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to extend warm encouragement to the workers and officials of the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine, who are reliably defending a part of the coal-mining front with a pure heart of faithfully and sincerely supporting the Party and the state and through an indomitable labour struggle.

I also express my gratitude to all the voters across the country, who are taking an active part in the election of the Deputies with a faith and pride in our socialist cause, with the awareness of being masters of state power and with patriotic enthusiasm.

I am in firm belief that, through today’s election, our people’s power will be consolidated as firm as a rock once again with the genuine representatives of the people and the functions and role of our Republic’s government further enhanced as required by the new stage of transformation.

Comrades,

Today is a significant day when the coal miners of Chonsong elect their representative who will take part in administering state affairs.

Every citizen of our Republic exercises the right to vote, but I don’t think it is easy for everyone to go to the polls with great pride and honour.

In our country advancing the socialist cause while blazing a new path of history, the working class is the most powerful force of creation and transformation and the vanguard that leads the whole society by dint of steadfast revolutionary spirit and noble traits.

Among them, the workers in the coal-mining sector are the hard core of the country performing the most valuable feats in the vanguard of state building.

The achievements the coal miners here in Chonsong made through a devoted struggle also formed part of the cornerstones of the steps of eye-opening advance and development our state ascended in the especially difficult and arduous last decade.

By writing an admirable chronicle of struggle in every decade of the revolution in defending the lifeline of the national economy and the rejuvenation and prosperity of the country, they have made uninterrupted innovations in coal production, rising up more vigorously without hesitation even in the face of hardships in the recent years.

It is impossible to describe their painstaking efforts with a few words.

I cannot but feel deep reverence for them to think that there is the path of patriotism the most beautiful and purest persons follow all their life under this ground people tread on casually and that the traces of unyielding efforts are unmistakable at every bend of the path.

There are a lot of families of patriotic miners working here at this colliery for three generations. Without genuine affection for this country, they could not have worked in such deep pits generation after generation–a job which other people find it hard to engage in.

As they are honest citizens who live for the good of their country with such faith and conscience, our coal miners are all the more valuable and trustworthy.

I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to you again for your invariable patriotic heart of devoting your precious sweat and enthusiasm unsparingly to the buildup of the lifeline of our self-supporting economy and to the stronger pulse of our era, as well as for your heroic struggle for, and exploits in, supporting our Party and state with devoted efforts at deep underground pits.

Availing myself of this opportunity, I also extend warm greetings to the miners’ wives and mothers who are making sincere, devoted efforts for the country’s coal production, sharing mind with their husbands and children, and also to the retired meritorious miners.

Comrades,

Coal is, as ever, the food for our industry and driving force for the development of our self-supporting economy.

The faster our progress gets and the faster our ideals turn into reality, the more urgent the need for coal is.

The fuel and raw materials for the backbone industries that serve as an engine of our state in pursuing prosperity and rejuvenation come just from coal.

For this reason, the Ninth Party Congress held recently set it as the struggle target of the coal-mining industry for the coming five years to boost its output 1.2 times what it is now.

As the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine has dug mountains of coal with great patriotic enthusiasm from each of the pits sharing their lifeline with the capital city of Pyongyang all the time, I believe that the mine will play the active role of a powerful engine in the lead of the struggle to attain the target of the new five-year plan by displaying such daring fighting morale and mettle.

You have been heroic and innovative, and I hope you will continue to exalt your great honour as eternal pacesetters and paragons of the coal-mining industry.

Comrades,

The Party Congress decided it as a major strategic task during the new long-term plan to build dwellings for coal miners, facelift the coal-mining areas and technically upgrade the coal-mining industry.

In the era, when the whole country is undergoing transformation and making progress, it is an important task which brooks no further delay and slackness and which our Party and state have to carry out without fail.

Along with another resolute revolution to eliminate the backward appearance of the coal-miners’ villages far removed from the country’s prestige and the requirements of the reality, the most advanced new life and new culture of the working class will take its undisputed position in the centre of our times.

Comrades,

It is unavoidable for us to face challenges and obstacles in the way of our advance, but the citizens of our Republic who love their state and system and cherish steadfast faith in socialism and indomitable revolutionary spirit will always achieve successful results on the strength of their concerted efforts and unity.

Respected comrade coal miners in Chonsong,

The Party Central Committee firmly believes in you.

Let us achieve our beautiful and sacred ideals without fail, giving full play to the dignity and courage, wisdom and bravery of the heroic working class.

Let us make more passionate, innovative and persistent efforts to glorify ours as a country which will be powerful and prosperous for ever.

I wish all the coal miners of the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine good health and their families delight and happiness.