Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law is promoted as North Korea shuffles leadership

BEIJING —
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law was elevated Monday to
the second-most-powerful position in the leadership, a reshuffling of
personnel intended to consolidate the ruling family’s grip over the
country.

The promotion of Jang Song Taek, 64, long believed to be one of the most powerful men behind the scenes in North Korea,
was announced after an unexpected meeting of the Supreme People’s
Assembly, presided over by ailing Kim. A longtime family confidante,
81-year-old Choe Yong Rim, was named as prime minister, a largely ceremonial post.

The reshuffling appears intended to pave the way for Kim’s inexperienced and little-known youngest son, Kim Jong Un, to become the titular leader after his father’s death.

“Jang will be the prince regent, the mentor, or who
knows — maybe the king, since nasty things have been known to happen to
crown princes,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea scholar with Kookmin University in Seoul, South Korea.
He cautioned, however, that the implications of the moves might not be
clear for some time. “This is not even Kremlinology — it’s much worse.”

Kim Jong Il, 68, who is believed to be suffering the
effects of a stroke, kidney disease and possibly cancer, began less
than a year ago preparing to have his youngest son succeed him. But he
may have encountered some resistance. The heir apparent, who is either
27 or 28, has such a skimpy resume and low public profile that the only
known photograph of him dates back to the age of about 13, when he was
reported to be a student at an international school in Switzerland.

Jang, on the other hand, has spent three decades in
the Workers’ Party leadership, at various times overseeing the secret
police, public labor and the military. He also has been one of the
chief officials trying to develop special economic zones within North Korea, along the lines of the Chinese model.

Jang is married to Kim Jong Il’s younger sister, Kim Kyung Hui.

With close ties to both the ruling party and the
military and with key family connections (an older brother at one point
headed the army division in charge of defending Pyongyang, the capital), Jang has long been considered the most powerful figure in North Korea after Kim Jong Il. Speculation that he might in fact be a rival led to his being banished from Pyongyang in 2004, but he came bounding back 18 months later.

The Supreme Peoples’ Assembly also dumped Prime
Minister Kim Yong Il, who is not related to the ruling family. He might
have taken the fall for a bungled currency reform late last year, for
which he had to offer a rare public apology.

Monday’s session was unexpected because the Supreme
Peoples’ Assembly normally convenes only once a year. The gathering led
to speculation that Kim’s health had taken a turn for the worse. He was
photographed in early May looking frail and uncharacteristically svelte
during a trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao and others in the leadership.

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