North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has cast his ballot at a coal mine constituency in elections to pick deputies for a new term of the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), with voter turnout recorded at 99.99 percent, state media reported Monday. Kim visited a polling station in Chonsong Youth Coal Mine under the Sunchon Area Youth Coal-mining Complex on Sunday to vote in the elections of deputies to the 15th SPA, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). North Korea typically holds rubber-stamp parliament elections every five years, but Sunday's elections marked the first in seven years as a follow-up to last month's key party congress. The North's leader voted for Jo Chol-ho, manager of the youth coal mine who is an SPA deputy candidate, according to the KCNA. At a speech, Kim stressed that coal is a "driving force" for the country's self-reliant economy, praising workers in the coal industry as the core element of the national development. "The faster our development accelerates and the more our ideals turn into a reality, the more urgent demand for coal will be," Kim said, highligh