North Korea prepares for highest political gathering in 3 decades

While the agenda – and even the duration – of the event is still unknown, its main objective is widely seen as cementing Kim Jong-Un’s status as supreme leader and legitimate inheritor of the Kim family’s dynastic rule.

At that time, Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder and President, elevated his son Kim Jong Il to No. 2 in the party, solidifying his position as successor.

Kim, believed to be 33, is expected to use the congress to formally declare North Korea a nuclear weapons state and adopt his “Byongjin” policy to push simultaneously for nuclear capability and economic development, further consolidating his power. Kim Jong II took power in 1994 when his father died and never held a congress.

Even as the global community responded with condemnation and sanctions, Kim kept the throttle opened up on the North’s single-minded drive towards a credible nuclear deterrent with additional missile and technical tests. With the party congress – the first to be held in 36 years – expected to last for three or four days, there is growing interest about what the congress’s resolution will say.

But the evidence of an imminent test remained inconclusive.

Political pronouncements are likely, though nobody is sure what North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has in mind. In its own way, North Korea seems to be carefully preparing for the party congress. The Rodong Sinmun reported on Wednesday that high-ranking officials in the realms of politics, society and the economy from around 20 countries, including Russia, Iran, Nepal, Mongolia and Bangladesh, had sent congratulatory messages in advance of the congress. Korea Central Broadcasting, a North Korean radio broadcaster, said on May 3 that the congress participants had arrived in Pyongyang the previous day.

There were also signs the Seventh Party Congress is taking a toll on ordinary North Koreans and elites alike.

The posts will be likely filled by a new generation of loyalists whom Mr. Kim has already been elevating.

People across the country, including women and children, were ordered to demonstrate their loyalty through increased forced labor to produce more goods and crops in order to cover the costs of the congress, Robertson said.