Seoul (AsiaNews) - Next week North Korea will hold a new Party Congress, the first in 30 years. In all likelihood the rally will reveal the passage of power from Kim Jong-il to his son Kim Jong-un.
The official North Korea news agency, the Knca, announced today that a party congress will be held September 28th to "choose the position of supreme leadership."
The choice of Kim Jong-il as the successor to Kim Il Sung took place in 1980 in a similar Congress. But the "Dear Leader" only took power in 1994, when his father died.
For months, there has been speculation over of Kim Jong-il’s health condition, who last summer suffered a stroke, and his possible successor. Last June, media in the North had announced that there would be a Congress in early September. The delay led to the supposition that there was an internal struggle for power. In recent weeks, Kim Jong-il travelled to Beijing. For many analysts the trip was to seek China’s "blessing" of the succession.
The name Kim Jong-un as a new North Korean leader emerged almost a year ago. Little is known of him, apart from his age, about 25 , and that he is the second son of Ko Yong-hee, the "Dear Leader’s" third wife who died in 2004 and the fact that he studied in Switzerland, at the International School in Berne.
AsiaNews sources describe him as "dangerous", "more autocratic and cruel that the 'Dear Leader' ... His western education makes him very dangerous: he knows the world outside Asia, and does not like it."
According to some analysts, this "dangerous" nature comes from the environment in which he was born and lived. Despite the brief period of study in Switzerland, Kim Jong-un attended his father's court and had to deal with his brothers, born from the first and second marriage of the "Dear Leader", who all hindered his climb to power in some way. Apparently his father has given him a free hand to eliminate other pretenders to the throne, even to the point of murder.