Kim Jong-Il secretly appointed youngest son to parliament in 2009: Report
By ANITuesday, June 29, 2010
LONDON - North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il secretly appointed his youngest son to parliament in 2009 in order to prepare him for his eventual succession. hosun Ilbo newspaper said Jong-Un’s name was not on the published list of deputies because the North wanted to cover up his appointment.
The name of Kim Jong-Un, 27, was absent from an official list of 687 Supreme People’s Assembly deputies elected on March 8, 2009.
But Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, citing a Western source informed in North Korean affairs, said Jong-Un was appointed under the pseudonym of Kim Jong, The Telegraph reports. e ran for constituency number 216 to mark the February 16 birthday of Kim Jong-Il, it said.
The source said the communist state began building up a personality cult around Jong-Un after the appointment by teaching a song entitled “Footsteps” at primary schools.
Yang Moo-Jin of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies said if the media reports were correct, “Pyongyang may have wanted Jong-Un’s election to be kept secret because of the political sensitivity of the power succession.”
There have been widespread reports that Jong-Un is being groomed as eventual successor to his 68-year-old father, who suffered a stroke in August 2008. (ANI)
