North Korean Leadership Gathering Announced For Next Week
Kim Jong-il
As the official media announced today, North Korea will hold a major meeting next week, a meeting to be held in Pyongyang on September 28.
It is the first gathering to be organized after the one that took place 30 years ago. At the last Workers’ Party conference, held in 1980, Kim Jong-il was introduced to the nation — and to most of the outside world. He took the power from his father Kim Il-sung, the founder of the modern North Korean state in 1994 when his father died.
The gathering that is about to take place next week is expected to elect the communist state’s “supreme leadership body”.
The meeting could signal the formal designation of Kim Jong-il’s youngest son as his heir.
According to Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul “It’s not 100 percent certain, because North Korea remains a very special country, but I would say it’s 99 percent sure that Kim Jong-un will be confirmed as the successor. He will be presented to the party and the people on the 28th as ‘the new genius of leadership, the guiding star of the 21st century,’ something like that.”
The younger Mr. Kim is expected to be given a Politburo post and perhaps a senior position in the government, yet according to many analysts he is not yet ready to be named chairman of the all-powerful National Defense Commission.
Serious debates seem to have been raised by the upcoming gathering. It is said to be a so called anointment of young Mr Kim, another moment when poems and songs alleging the greatness of the leader will be heard. Yet, some analysts maintain a cautious attitude, suggesting that the gathering is about to introduce a party leadership, thus helping him to make his name well known before he eventually inherits power.
Kim Jong-un is said to have no political or military training.
“He doesn’t know much about anything,” Mr. Lankov said.
There is much interest in the potential future leader of a nuclear-armed state.
Being known to have attended a private school in Switzerland for a time, Kim Jong-un’s age remains uncertain for many -27 or 28 years old. He is described as a man of medium height, and a bit overweight, with high blood pressure and perhaps diabetes. According to what most reports have said, he looks very much like his father.
Even though the meeting was previously announced to take place in early September, its delay triggered various reactions among North-Korean analysts and not only.
First, speculations have been made about Kim Jong-il’s health and this mainly due to an apparent stroke he suffered in August 2008. This can also be explained by the apparent continuing deterioration of his appearance as seen in official state photographs and video footage.
Later on, it has been said that he probably needed to recover from the recent train ship to China where he met with senior officials.
And last but not least important, it has been said that recent storms and flooding in the North had delayed the conference because it became difficult for party delegates to travel to Pyongyang.
There have been voices saying that the delay was due to the disagreement existing between political and military elite about a possible change in power-from father to son.
According to the official Korean Central News Agency the party delegates will meet on 28 September to elect new party leaders.
Finding himself in poor health at only two years after suffering a stroke, the 68 years Dear Leader Kim is believed to be planning a taking over of the Kim dynasty into a third generation.
Being a communist country, North Koreans have to face a strong propaganda machine, a machine demanding loyalty and ovations.
Being described as a “historic” meeting, the gathering that is about to take place in Pyongyang has already triggered great interest in the country’s political people and in the political analysts.
According to Japan’s Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, quoting North Korean sources, Jong-Un had “received a revolutionary education and influence from the beloved supreme commander (Kim Jong-Il) and his respected mother to equip himself with the dignity and qualities necessary for a great successor to the Songun (military-first) revolution”,
It added that Kim Jong-Il had put his heart into giving his son the “qualities of an all-conquering great commander and an outstanding statesman excellent both in the arts of pen and sword”.
Being well known for misleading world leaders as it was the case with Vladimir Putin then Russia’s president, Mr Kim might reserve many surprises. The North Korean dictator had promised Putin he would surrender his missile programme. Mr. Kim later quipped that he was joking.
Being considered a very special country, and as such having a very special leader, North Korea may bring over many surprises to all the analysts expressing their views on the subject.
Asked by reporters whether his youngest brother would take over the power, King Jong Nam declared the following : “No one can say for sure and only father will decide.”
