There have been several changes to the membership of the WPK Secretariat which occurred during the meeting of the WPK Political Bureau on April 8, 2014. After the Political Bureau met, state media did not dislcose any of the “organizational matters” discussed at the meeting. As with other senior positions (such as the Chief of the KPA General Staff), the idenitity of the new WPK Secretaries were publicized when the new officeholders attended events and identified in their positions by DPRK state media. After making a series of appointments to the Korean People’s Army [KPA] high command during 2013, Kim Jong Un has turned his attention to the central party. The WPK Secretaries (sometimes called Central Party Secretaries or in DPRK state media, “secretaries of the C.C. [central committee], the WPK) form the party’s core power organization (the Secretariat). They formulate and implement party policies under their respective purviews, in cooperation with WPK Central Committee Department and deliberate on personnel and policy matters. Some WPK Secretaries hold concurrent positions as department directors (who implement policies). For a number of years (at least from 1980 to 2010) the WPK Secretaries also headed the CC Departments, however this altered with a rule change at the 3rd Party Conference in which the departments (and their directors) were separated from the WPK Secretariat and subordinated directly under the Party Central Committee. Some of the changes to the WPK Secretariat and the Central Committee Departments include:
Kim Su Gil, Chief Secretary of the Pyongyang WPK City Committee, speaks during a ceremony on May 2, 2014 opening workers’ dormitories at Kim Cho’ng-suk Textile Mill (Photo: KCTV).
Shirley Temple Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Buildings at Kim Kyong Hui’s main residence in central Pyongyang that include her office, technical and domestic staff and dining facilities (Photo: NK Leadership Watch).
Far from Pyongyang and away from the DPRK’s political culture, these changes to the top party leadership are being observed and probably aided by Kim Kyong Hui, KJU’s aunt and Jang Song Taek’s widow. Although Madame Kim currently resides abroad in semi-retirement and is likely no longer an active part of the central party, she has close political and/or personal ties to many members of the WPK Secretariat. In addition to her longstanding personal ties to the Secretariat’s senior members Kim Ki Nam and Choe T’ae Bok, she is equally close to Kang Sok Ju, the new WPK Secretary and Director of the International Affairs Department. Kim Kyong Hui was the IAD’s former senior (1st vice) deputy director from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. Kang served as a cadre and section chief under Madame Kim in the 1970s and she was instrumental in his appointment to the DPRK’s foreign service and his first major diplomatic posting to the DPRK’s UNESCO Mission. The WPK Light Industry Department was Kim Kyong Hui’s fiefdom for nearly three decades. An Jong Su, the department’s new director, served as Minister of Light Industry in the government whilst Madame Kim directed policy from the central party. An’s migration from the DPRK Cabinet to the party might be due in part to saving the career of one of Kim Kyong Hui’s former subordinates in the aftermath of an institutional consolidation. Finally, Kim Kyong Hui has been vouching for Choe Ryong Hae since they were children. Put aside the sheer nonsense about Choe’s health costing him his job at the KPA General Political Department, there is an even chance Madame Kim intervened with KJU to have him absolve Choe whatever trespass of greed, envy or pride the new WPK Secretary of Workers’ Organization committed during his tenure at GPD.