North Korea watchers’ predictions on Kim Jong-un rise to power

Kim Jong-il is expected to convene a rare congress of the ruling Workers’ Party in coming days to pave the way for his son to succeed him, a feat of political engineering that would be a first in the Communist world: extending dynastic rule to a third generation. 

The meeting, like all political events in the North, will be secret, and even the precise starting date has not been publicly confirmed. North Korea has said that the party’s “highest leading body” will be elected at the meeting; beyond that, the agenda is unknown, and it is unclear how the expected promotion of Mr. Kim’s third son, Kim Jong-un, will be presented.

Little is known about the son Kim Jong-un, believed to be in his late 20s. After his father’s stroke in 2008, however, his grooming as heir picked up speed. He has accompanied his father on visits to factories and military units and is getting policy briefings, according to South Korean intelligence officials who monitor developments in the North.

Songs, poems and posters alluding to the son are in circulation, they say. North Korean media have not mentioned the son by name, but propaganda has hinted about the virtues of transferring power to a younger generation.

“This party meeting will be a coming-out party for Kim Jong-un,” said Peter Beck, a North Korea expert at Keio University in Japan.

“A new force will come in who will pave the way for the succession and support the young, inexperienced kid as leader,” said Chang Yong-seok, research director at the Institute for Peace Affairs in Seoul. “If a new generation of leaders comes in, this is not a bad thing. They could be less bound by ideology and more pragmatic about opening up.”

Jang Song-taek, Mr. Kim’s brother-in-law, and hard-line generals on Mr. Kim’s National Defense Commission, the country’s top ruling body, are expected to move into crucial party posts to ensure a smooth transition of power, analysts say. Less clear is whether Mr. Kim is confident enough to place his son in the Politburo and the party’s Central Military Commission.

Woo Seong-ji, a professor at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, said that he believed Mr. Kim might start his son in a rather modest post to “lessen the shock” and buy time to build his leadership credentials.

Mr. Beck of Keio University said: “He can’t be too prominent because he is not known to the North Korean public. They have to make the sale to the public. But they have to make the sale to some of the elite, too.”

“I think he is chosen exactly because he is young,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul. “In case of his father’s sudden death, Kim Jong-un — inexperienced, without power base, embarrassingly young — will have no choice but to obediently follow the instructions of the old guard. He will be a dictator, but merely a rubber-stamping dictator. This is what the people in the position of power want.”

[New York Times]

September transfer of power in North Korea?

In September, North Korea will hold only the third-ever meeting of its ruling party, the clearest sign yet that the hermit nation is preparing for a transfer of power.

The announcement that the Political Bureau of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) would gather to elect a new leadership follows an intense period of political jockeying in the secretive state. Ailing leader Kim Jong-il is desperate to ensure that his son Kim Jong-un is anointed as his successor.

It was at the last meeting of the WPK in 1980 that Kim Jong-il was made his father's official successor, when he was elected as a standing member of the Political Bureau. Analysts in South Korea, such as Koh Yu-hwan, an expert on North Korea at Seoul's Dongguk University, are speculating that the September session will result in Kim Jong-un being elevated in the party hierarchy.

Said to resemble his father in personality, the 27-year-old Jong-un was educated at a Swiss boarding school. With Kim Jong-il in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2008, Jong-un has started to take a more prominent role in DPRK politics. Last year, he was elected to a position on the National Defense Commission.

Yet Kim Jong-il faces a fight in his efforts to make sure his son becomes the third generation of his family to rule the DPRK. The mysterious death in a car crash earlier this month of Ri Je-gang, one of the most senior WPK officials and a key supporter of Kim Jong-un's succession, has fuelled speculation that the powerful North Korean military would prefer one of their own to succeed Kim.

Latest on North Korean Heir Apparent

Talk of succession in North Korea has died down since Kim Jong-il's health has improved.

But experts say there is apparently no change in the designation of his third son Kim Jong-un as successor. A diplomatic source in Tokyo said a document "drawn up in preparation for the succession" appears authentic.

The Mainichi Shimbun published the full text of indoctrination materials hailing and praising Jong-un, describing Kim Jong-un as a "genius" of modern military science and technology. According to the document, Kim has completed a three-year infantry officer course and a two-year research program at university.

More Korean rumblings on Kim Jong-Un

So what of Jong-Un, a 26-year-old Swiss-educated basketball fan, becoming heir to the North Korean communist dynasty?

South Korea's intelligence services have received word that Kim Jong-Il has nominated Jong-Un to succeed him, a South Korean lawmaker briefed by intelligence officials said Tuesday. North Koreans were reported to already be making pledges of loyalty to Jong-Un and singing songs in praise of "General Kim."

Kim's third son has been described as a "chip off the old block" and is seen by experts as a potentially skilled and ruthless leader, like his father, who has kept his regime in place despite years of famine and economic decline.

"Jong-Un is known to have the potential to become a strong, ruthless leader. He has a take-charge personality," Cheong Seong-Chang, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute, told AFP.

Kim nominated Jong-Un as his successor some time between late last year and early this year and has been informing the party, military and the government of his choice, starting from the top echelons, Cheong said.

Kenji Fujimoto, a former Japanese sushi chef for the North Korean leader, described Jong-Un in a memoir as a "chip off the old block, a spitting image of his father in terms of face, body shape and personality."

"If Kim Jong-Il is gone, the possibility of the North bargaining away its nuclear weapons would also disappear as no one but the current leader would be powerful enough to browbeat the military," Cheong said.

[AFP]