North Korean leader's younger sister joins party Central Committee
Believed to be in her late 20s, she frequently appears at her brother’s public events, standing out amid elderly male officials
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, has been elected a member of the ruling party’s Central Committee, an official media report showed Tuesday, a day after the party announced a new title of party “chairman” for the leader.
The election of Kim Yo-jong, a vice director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea, provided further evidence that Kim Jong-un has tightened his grip on power through the party’s first congress in 36 years, which ended Monday.
The selection of Kim Yo-jong, who is younger than the leader, was confirmed in a list of the 129-member committee released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
During the congress, it was decided that revised party rules “stipulate that its top post is chairman of the WPK and he is its supreme leader who represents the party and leads the whole party,” according to a KCNA report released Tuesday.
Kim Jong-un has been in the top post of the party, but his previous title was “first secretary.”
The congress served as a venue to reaffirm the “Byungjin Line,” Kim’s signature policy of simultaneously pursuing the development of nuclear weapons and the country’s economy, as well as to highlight the role of the party as the paramount political body of the country.
Kim’s late father and former leader Kim Jong-il advocated the so-called “Songun,” or military first, policy. However, the current leader has apparently shifted his focus to the party as his grandfather and North Korea’s first ruler Kim Il-sung did.
