Latest update : 2016-05-06
North Korea raised the curtain on Friday on its biggest political show for a generation, aimed at cementing the absolute rule of leader Kim Jong-Un and shadowed by the possibility of an imminent nuclear test.
The first ruling party congress for nearly 40 years
drew thousands of selected delegates from across the country to
Pyongyang for what, in theory at least, was a gathering of North Korea’s
top decision-making body.
The 33-year-old Kim, who was not even born when the last Workers’
Party Congress was held in 1980, was expected to deliver a keynote
address which will be minutely scrutinised for any policy shift or
personnel changes in the governing elite.
The 1980 event was staged to crown Kim’s father Kim Jong-Il as heir
apparent to his own father, the North’s founding leader Kim Il-Sung.
While the agenda—and even the duration—of the event is still unknown,
its main objective is widely seen as confirming Kim Jong-Un’s status as
legitimate inheritor of the Kim family’s dynastic rule which spans
almost seven decades.
The congress is also expected to confirm as party doctrine Kim’s
“byungjin” policy of pursuing nuclear weapons in tandem with economic
development.
Propaganda party
Ahead of the gathering, national and Workers’ Party flags lined the
broad, rainswept streets of Pyongyang, while banners carried slogans
such as “Great comrades Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il will always be with
us”.
Another slogan stretched across the street defiantly proclaimed:
“Defend the headquarters of the Korean revolution at the cost of our
lives.”
Since Kim took power after the death of his father in December 2011,
North Korea has carried out two nuclear tests and two successful space
rocket launches that were widely seen as disguised ballistic missile
tests.
Even as the international community responded with condemnation and
sanctions, Kim pressed ahead with a single-minded drive for a credible
nuclear deterrent with additional missile and technical tests.
There has been widespread speculation about the North preparing
another nuclear test to coincide with the congress, as a defiant gesture
of strength and intent.
Nuclear state
Just hours before the party congress opened, the North’s Committee
for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea issued a statement underlining
the country’s status as a genuine, and unapologetic, nuclear power.
“Regardless of whether someone recognises it or not, our status as a
nuclear state that is armed with H-bombs cannot change,” the statement
said.
Analysing the most recent satellite pictures of the North’s test site
at Punggye-ri, the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University on
Thursday said there was no clear evidence one way or the other of
whether an underground test was imminent.
South Korean government officials believe the North is ready to
conduct a test as soon as the order is given, and say a decision might
have been taken to test during the congress, which the world’s media
have been invited to cover.
Officials in Seoul say they expect the event to last four days, with
the opening day devoted to Kim’s speech and a lengthy report on the
party’s achievements.
State television set the tone with its first broadcast Friday
morning, with an announcer voicing the people’s “deepest gratitude” to
Kim Jong-Un for preparing this “grand political festival”.
Some analysts predict significant personnel changes as Kim brings in a
younger generation of leaders, picked for their loyalty to him.
Preparing for the congress involved mobilising the entire country in a
70-day campaign that New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced as a
mass exercise in forced labour.
(AFP)
