By Joyce Lee<\/p>\n
SEOUL, Sept 3 (Reuters) – North Korea’s revision of rules governing the Workers’ Party lays the groundwork for more centralised control under \u200cthe reclusive state’s leader Kim Jong Un, a South Korean security institute \u200creport said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The revisions, adopted at the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea’s Ninth Congress in \u200bFebruary, strengthened Kim’s authority and further institutionalised party control over the state and military, said the Institute for National Security Strategy, which is affiliated with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.<\/p>\n
The rules give the party’s general secretary, a post held by \u200cKim, explicit powers to convene \u2060and chair Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee meetings, appoint and dismiss key officials, admit or expel party members, and dissolve party \u2060organisations and departments.<\/p>\n
The provisions allow Kim to exercise more direct control without relying on collective party decision-making bodies, the report said.<\/p>\n
Other changes were aimed at regularising party \u200boperations and \u200btightening central oversight of government and military \u200baffairs.<\/p>\n
The revised rules require Central \u200cCommittee plenary meetings at least once every six months. They also allow the Politburo, when authorised by the Central Committee, to decide major issues in wartime, a step intended to avoid delays by allowing a smaller group of senior officials to act without convening the full committee.<\/p>\n
The report said the revisions removed \u200cremaining references to the achievements of Kim’s grandfather, \u200bstate founder Kim Il Sung, and his father, \u200bformer leader Kim Jong Il, \u200bwhile emphasising Kim Jong Un’s central role.<\/p>\n
The revised rules also \u200cretained North Korea’s abandonment of its \u200blongstanding unification policy toward \u200bSouth Korea, after Pyongyang deleted related language in 2024 under its “two hostile states” framework.<\/p>\n
Other changes raised the minimum party membership age to 20 from \u200b18 and expanded disciplinary \u200cmeasures against members.<\/p>\n
The institute described the revisions as part of a “Kim \u200bJong Un era 2.0”, further consolidating authority around the North Korean \u200bleader.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Joyce LeeEditing by Ed Davies)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Joyce Lee SEOUL, Sept 3 (Reuters) – North Korea’s revision of rules governing the Workers’ Party lays…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24687,72501,1516,446,447,141,72498,71472,31,34,2175,34737,72499,72500,72502,13213,1484,39215,6103],"class_list":["post-142319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-north-korea","tag-joyce-lee","tag-joyce-leeediting","tag-kim","tag-kim-il-sung","tag-kim-jong-il","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-kim-jong-uns","tag-kims","tag-korea","tag-north-korea","tag-north-korean","tag-party","tag-party-of-koreas-ninth-congress","tag-politburo","tag-politburo-standing-committee","tag-reuters","tag-south-korean","tag-south-koreas-national-intelligence-service","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}