Kim Jong-un was not on the list of 687 candidates elected to the North Korean parliament in Sunday’s election, state media announced on Tuesday, although his sister was voted into the rubber-stamp parliament.

No reason has been given for Mr Kim’s absence from the ballot, five years after he was elected in the previous vote as head of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Every candidate who did run in the election was returned with 100 percent of the vote in their constituencies, including Kim Yo-jung, Mr Kim’s younger sister, who previously worked in the government’s propaganda division but has more recently taken on the management of his day-to-day schedule.

“North Korean elections have no meaning anyway, but this is designed to show that Kim feels himself to be above those who were elected”, said Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor who specialises in North Korea’s leadership at Tokyo’s Waseda University.

“He is telling the nation that he is not on the same level as the rest of the party and it is effectively beneath him to go through the election process”, he added. “This will not affect his control on the party or the nation, but it is meant to show that he’s a better leader than his own father and Kim Il-sung, his grandfather and the founder of North Korea”.