By Ankit Panda
Kim Jong-un was ‘re-elected’ to the top of the National Defense Commission, but he still has work to do.
On Wednesday, Kim Jong-un was re-elected to the top of North Korea’s highest governing agency by the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s parliament. More specifically, Kim was re-elected to serve as the first chairman of the National Defense Commission, a position held by his father and grandfather, and one that effectively guarantees total control of the state’s military apparatus. As with all elections in North Korea, the event was largely ceremonial, with the Supreme People’s Assembly serving as little more than a rubber stamp rather than providing any sort of legitimate democratic mandate for Kim Jong-un’s leadership.
As of now, Kim Jong-un remains stable at the top of North Korea’s power architecture, but there are reasons to believe that he is still in the process of consolidating his leadership, two years after the death of his father. Externally, North Korea continues to wrangle with international sanctions that have crippled its economy. Internally, Kim had to ensure that his leadership was not undermined by other factions with the Korean Workers’ Party or the military. In achieving this, he ended up purging several significant North Korean leaders from his father’s regime, including most famously his uncle Jang Song-thaek, who was Kim’s effective second-in-charge.
Read the full story at The Diplomat