Seoul, Sep 28 (DPA) The youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has stood for months at the centre of speculation over who would succeed the strongman.
Kim Jong Un, who is about 27, has long been considered the favourite, but little is known about him.
Discussions of Kim Jong Il’s family relationships are taboo in North Korea. Photographs of the younger Kim have been few and far between, and the first mention of him in state-controlled media was made Tuesday in an announcement that his father had made him a four-star general.
But Kim Jong Il’s former cook Kenji Fujimori wrote in a book that the third of his three sons is most like his father – from looks to character.
He supposedly developed an early sense of authority and power, the South Korean newspaper The Korea Herald reported. And like his father, he also reportedly suffers from diabetes.
On Tuesday, he also appeared to have been made, as his father before him, the political crown prince of the isolated, impoverished Stalinist country.
The announcement that he had become a general was another indication that he could soon be nominated his father’s successor.
It occurred shortly before the largest meeting in 30 years of North Korea’s ruling communist party, the Workers Party of Korea, which began Tuesday in Pyongyang. During the previous meeting in 1980, Kim Jong Il was anointed his own father’s political heir, eventually taking over the country in 1994 when Kim Il Sung died.
While Kim Jong Un’s elevation had been predicted for months by political analysts, Tuesday was the first concrete information that he was ascending the political ladder in secretive North Korea.
Kim Jong Un had emerged last year as his father’s likely successor. Since then, news has leaked out of the country that officials had been ordered to pledge loyalty to him, propaganda songs and poetry have been written about him and his birthday has been designated a public holiday.
Kim Jong Un was born in 1983 or 1984. His mother was a dancer and Kim Jong Il’s third wife, Ko Yong Hi, who died six years ago from breast cancer, according to media reports.
Her son reportedly was educated under a false name in an international school in Berne, Switzerland, until 1998. The Swiss weekly magazine L’Hebdo reported last year that Kim Jong Un left the school at the age of 15 without completing his diploma.
His classmates described him as shy and introverted and added that he liked to ski and play basketball, it said. He admired the US basketball star Michael Jordan and the action film star Jean-Claude Van Damme, it reported.
Before Tuesday, Kim Jong Un had yet to appear on the political stage, but signs had been growing since last year that he would become the third person in the Kim political dynasty to rule North Korea.
Kim Jong Un was elected as a delegate to this week’s party conference by the North Korean Army, according to reports Monday, in a move seen as a stepping stone to membership in the party’s central committee, which dictates national policies.
Observers also saw importance Tuesday in the appointment of another four-star general, Kim Kyoung Hui, the 64-year-old sister of the country’s ruler. She is married to Jang Song Thaek, who analysts consider the number two leader in North Korea.
Both are now in positions to act as mentors to Kim Jong Un, who, unlike his father, would probably not have two decades of preparations to take the reins of absolute power in North Korea.
According to South Korean intelligence, Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke in 2008, leading to speculation about the state of his health ever since.
If the father departs soon, Jang could keep the saddle warm for the son as he readies to extend the Kim political dynasty.
