It is called democratic because people can 'technically' vote if you are 17 years old or older. These elections are just for show and are single-candidate races only. This makes North Korea even more authoritarian than the Soviet Union, which (while obviously not a democracy and, as I previously stated, followed the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' model of socialism described by Karl Marx in Critique of the Gotha Program) allowed people to have limited say in their government by allowing them to move local members of the Communist Party from office if they got less than 50% of the vote instead of having completely fake elections. Basically, North Korea's 'democracy' is a sham - such a sham that even some intentionally authoritarian governments could be said to be more 'democratic' by comparison.

It is called democratic because people can 'technically' vote if you are 17 years old or older. These elections are just for show and are single-candidate races only. This makes North Korea even more authoritarian than the Soviet Union, which (while obviously not a democracy and, as I previously stated, followed the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' model of socialism described by Karl Marx in Critique of the Gotha Program) allowed people to have limited say in their government by allowing them to move local members of the Communist Party from office if they got less than 50% of the vote instead of having completely fake elections. Basically, North Korea's 'democracy' is a sham - such a sham that even some intentionally authoritarian governments could be said to be more 'democratic' by comparison. Some have even gone as far as to call North Korea under Juche (its current political system) an absolute monarchy or a "hereditary dictatorship" pretending to be a democracy or Marxist socialist nation.