Doubt grows as N Korea prepares for succession

SCEPTICISM is growing about the prospect of a second dynastic succession as North Korea prepares for a rare meeting expected to endorse the process, a welfare group with cross-border contacts said yesterday.

The North's ruling communist party is expected to start a four-day conference on Saturday, South Korea's Good Friends group cited its sources in the hardline state as saying.

The conference of key delegates, the first of its kind since 1966, is widely expected to anoint leader Kim Jong Il's youngest son Jong-Un as eventual successor, even though a formal announcement is unlikely.

The 68-year-old ailing leader stressed the need to prepare for the "rising generation" and visited sites linked to his own late father and founding president Kim Il-sung during a five-day trip to ally China that ended Monday.

Analysts saw the site visits as a bid to confer legitimacy on another father-to-son succession.

The party meeting is scheduled for the first half of September but no date has been announced. The South's unification ministry said it may be held next week.

Good Friends quoted party officials as saying the meeting would focus on shaping new policies and electing new party delegates who may include the son.

Delegates may swear an oath of allegiance to Jong-Un, it said.

The group's director Lee Seung-Yong said the elder Kim may reshuffle the party hierarchy or set out new policies. "Ordinary people in the country are not interested in the father-to-son transfer of power. They think their living standards will not improve even if the son inherits power," he said.AFP