North Korea poised to name new leader
North Korea’s ruling party is set to hold its biggest meeting in decades to pick a new leader, state media reports, as current leader Kim Jong-il’s health deteriorates.
Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, is set to be anointed at the meeting of the Worker’s Party on 28 September.
Kim has reportedly sped up his succession plans. The 68-year-old is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 and has become extremely reclusive ever since, although the North Korean leader did visit China in August this year.
North Korean news agency KCNA said the conference would be held in Pyongyang “for electing its supreme leadership body”.
The agency said meetings have already been taking place around the country to elect delegates to send to the conference.
Repression and fear as North Korea considers future
The stage is then set, the protagonists known, the mood music as sombre as ever, writes Channel 4 News Foreign Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh.
It is all quite funny, in that Stalinist vein of black humour to be found where there is no other humanity. But that is to forget the ongoing famine in the country, the suppurating anger and exhaustion over hope for change, and the deep groundswell of popular fury when the government recently decided to revalue the currency, rendering the savings of many useless.
The smoke signals of North Korea tell us the little the powers that be there want to reveal, but betray a truth far deeper about the sheer state of repression and fear inside that hermit of states.
“The meetings elected working people and officials who have displayed patriotic devotion at the work sites for effecting a fresh revolutionary surge, remaining intensely loyal to the party and revolution as delegates to the conference,” it said.
The meeting, to be held next week, will be the largest since 1980, when Kim began his official role to succeed his father and state founder.
Oppressive
North Korea is one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, and is closely watched by the rest of the world as a result of its nuclear capability.
It has a “military-first” policy and is still technically at war with South Korea, as the countries only signed an armistice in 1953.
It has 1.2 million troops, and 7.7 million in reserve, as well as enough nuclear material for at least six to eight nuclear weapons.
The move to appoint Kim’s son as his successor shows the leader’s intention to keep the rule of the country in the family. However, as Kim Jong-un is only 20 and seen as inexperienced, his father is unlikely to step down soon unless he is forced to by ill-health.