North Korea congress shaping up to be coronation
PYONGYANG — Senior members of North Korea’s ruling regime took to the stage on Saturday to praise their party and leader Kim Jong Un at their biggest meeting in 36 years, a much-touted and tightly choreographed event intended to demonstrate Kim is firmly in control despite his country’s deepening international isolation over its nuclear weapons program.
In something like a formal coronation for Kim, the ruling Workers’ Party congress was also expected to officially elect him to its top post.
According to the North’s staterun media, the agenda for the congress includes reviewing the work of the party’s Central Committee and Central Audit Commission, revising party rules, electing Kim to the top party post and installing a new central party leadership.
Video of the proceedings broadcast on state television Saturday showed party officials reporting accomplishments in the military, science and economy as part of the first item on the agenda.
The decision to formally install — or, perhaps more accurately, reinstall — Kim at the top is a step along the lines of his late father and grandfather, who both held the title of general secretary of the Workers’ Party, and would demonstrate the young leader is in full control and ready to begin a new era of his own.