By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korea will open its mysteriously delayed meeting of political elites Tuesday amid intensifying rumors of leader Kim Jong-il's crumbling health and a looming power struggle to succeed him.

   The Workers' Party convention of top delegates, the country's biggest political meeting in 30 years, was scheduled to be held at least by mid-September, according to the North's public announcements.

   But as with most things in North Korea, the totalitarian regime did not provide reasons for putting off the event, opening wide room for outside speculation over its state of affairs.

   One popular theory revolved around the 68-year-old leader who has gone from stout and sanguine to sullen and shrunken since he suffered a widely believed stroke in 2008.

   Radio Free Asia reported last week that Kim has now developed a symptom where he unexpectedly dozes off for about five minutes repeatedly throughout the day. Open Radio for North Korea, run by defectors, claimed that Kim suffered a bout of dyspnea, or breathing difficulties, on Sept. 8, an apparent side effect to a medication he is taking to prevent a relapse into a brain ailment.

   Another set of speculation involves a 20-something man who outside officials and analysts say appears to be being groomed to take over the nuclear-armed country from his father.

   If Kim Jong-un, as he is so far known, emerges from the shadow and receives a top post Tuesday as many speculate, it will mark the start of the communist world's first back-to-back power transfer.

   The Swiss-educated Kim "is the only candidate whose choice is likely to prevent a lot of factional infighting," Brian Myers, a professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, said in e-mailed comments.

   Kim Jong-il himself took over the North after his father and North Korea founder Kim Il-sung died in 1994. But his rise to power had been anticipated for more than a decade because he was formally appointed among the highest-ranking party officials in 1980.

   "Every faction in the elite can agree that while (Kim Jong-un) may not be the oldest, brightest or most experienced candidate, he is, as a representative of the great family line, the person most likely to hold all the different factions and interest groups together," Myers said.

   Compared to his father, Kim Jong-un, the youngest of Kim Jong-il's three known sons, may lack any tangible career history to win heartfelt loyalty. The only thing he has closest to a credential in the view of outsiders is a 2003 comment by Japanese sushi chef Kenji Fujimoto who formerly served the Kims that he is as ambitious as his father and behaves like "a chip off the old block."

   The absence of concrete information on Kim Jong-un, whose childhood photos are rare and adult ones nearly non-existent, has prompted some to dismiss the likelihood of the young man taking over the 23-million-strong nation guarded by 1.2 million troops.

   Former Japanese defense chief Yuriko Koike said in comments for a Chinese newspaper earlier this month that it is Kim Jong-il's sister, not his son, that may be designated as the next leader.

   "Kim Kyung-hee, Kim Jong-il's sister and the wife of the second-ranking figure in North Korea's hierarchy, Jang Song-taek, may balk at power slipping through her fingers," she said. "Indeed, in a country where trust rarely exists, Kim Kyung-hee is the only blood relation whom Kim Jong-il has ever fully trusted."

   Koike's comments suggest that a power struggle within the tightly controlled North Korean regime may be speeding up. Such a development, hardly tolerated by a country that stresses the importance of unity under one ideology and leader, may be taking place at a level subtle enough to be condoned by Kim Jong-il.

   If gone awry, however, the infighting may trigger unrest within the ruling class and leave scars that will be difficult to seal up long after Kim dies and his successor is designated.

   "What will come out of the party convention when the curtain is raised is something the South Korean government is closely looking at," a senior Unification Ministry official told reporters in a meeting earlier this month, speaking on condition of anonymity.

   "If the top delegates' convention ends without bearing any significance internally, it will then merely turn out to be a kind of happening," he also said, cautioning against wild speculation.

   Another ranking ministry official, in charge of analyzing North Korea's political undercurrents, said that the Tuesday gathering, among others, will focus on restoring the power of the party that has long been overshadowed by the National Defense Commission.

   North Korea has said the meeting will mark a turning point in its history and back a new leadership to head the country, an indication that Kim will mandate some of his power on his confidants in the party. Or, Kim may be simply trying to expand the power of the commission by giving its members higher party posts, a reshuffle unique to a communist regime, the official said.

   "Last but not least, will North Korea make a policy leap at the convention?" he said, citing a party regulation that allows such a convention to call up a special debate on party lines, policies and strategic and tactical maneuvers.

   During the Tuesday convention, the North may only choose to elect new leadership and then discuss proposals on state affairs later on the sidelines of an Oct. 10 ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the founding of the party, the official said.

   North Korea announced last week that it would hold the party convention on Sept. 28.

   samkim@yna.co.kr
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