NKorea begins first party congress since 1980

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL

North Korea ended months of waiting Friday by officially kicking off the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, 36 years after the last political gathering of its kind was convened.

This time around, the event was seen as an exercise in power consolidation for leader Kim Jong-un.

Kim is likely to have opened the meeting at Pyongyang’s April 25 House of Culture with a speech, but the North did not reveal any details via state media, while invited foreign journalists were apparently kept outside in the rain.

The North’s official KCNA news agency did celebrate Kim’s alleged achievements as a statement from his authoritarian regime’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea vowed to continue to develop nuclear weapons in response to perceived American aggression.

May 6 was confirmed as the date for the meeting’s start at the end of last month, amid reports of a 70-day nationwide money collection effort under the banner of a “loyalty campaign”.

The country’s previous congress was held in 1980 under the leadership of Kim’s grandfather and North Korean founding dictator Kim Il-sung.

South Korean officials had been expecting Pyongyang to carry out a major provocation in the days building up to the event, in order to provide Kim with a political boost after several failed missile tests in April.

On the contrary, it has been an almost eerily quiet week so far in the heavily sanctioned state -- the United Nations’ latest punitive measures were imposed in March following the North’s fourth ever nuclear test in January and subsequent rocket launch.

A fifth North Korean atomic test could yet be imminent based on satellite imagery suggesting that related preparations are complete.

The North is also yet to conduct a firing drill upon a mock-up of Seoul’s presidential office, which was erected last month just outside Pyongyang.

If the congress itself is at least partly aimed at consolidating Kim’s position, some analysts have proposed that his sister, Kim Yo-jong, could be promoted.