Amidst all the dark COVID-19 stuff that’s happening everywhere at the moment, the world got thrown an unexpected curve ball when CNN reported that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-Un, is in “grave danger” after a surgery. While subsequent reports from South Korea downplayed the severity of the initial news, it hasn’t stopped speculation over who will lead North Korea should Kim Jong-Un die. Hear all about it below:
Since everyone is probably wondering the same thing about North Korea’s leadership, Kim Jong-Un’s successor if he does die, and the official line of succession, we’re going to try and unpack all this in something of a coherent answer. Just to get this out of the way right now, Dennis Rodman has no shot in hell in being North Korea’s leader.
The leadership of North Korea is a bit of an odd duck compared to the rest of the world. Ever since 1948, North Korea has been ruled by the Kim family and there’s only ever been three leaders: Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, and Kim Jong-Un.
Having only gone through two successions, it’s actually pretty hard to figure out who will lead North Korea should Kim Jong-Un die, especially with how unclear the line of succession is.
What we do know is that North Korea is an extremely patriarchal society and its leaders are viewed as God-like figures. Legitimacy is placed on family, hence the three generations of Kims that have spearheaded the country’s leadership.
To use an outdated Game Of Thrones analogy, it’s like how the Targaryens ruled Westeros for generations but with considerably less incest.
Kim Jong-Un was groomed for years to succeed his father, just as how Kim Jong-Il was groomed to succeed Kim Il-Sung. However, the problem is that Kim Jong-Un was meant to lead North Korea for decades to come rather than head to the pearly gates aged just 36 (or 37, no one is quite sure).
This has meant that Kim Jong-Un’s three successors (at least we think there are three, no one is quite sure how many children he has either) are far too young to lead North Korea and that has thrown the line of succession into disarray.
Since North Korea leadership is all about keeping it in the family (but only if they’re dudes), the logical step would be for one of Kim Jong-Un’s two older male siblings, Kim Jong-Nam and Kim Jong-Chul, to step up. However, there’s a problem with this solution.
Kim Jong-Nam was assassinated in 2017 (widely believed to be Kim Jong-Un’s doing) while Kim Jong-Chul was passed over by Kim Jong-Il because he had no interest in politics and his love of Eric Clapton made his dad think he wasn’t manly enough to lead North Korea.
Okay, so the male side of the Kim family is out and that leaves Kim Jong-Un’s three sisters left. While his first two sisters are in decorative political roles in North Korea, Kim Jong-Un’s youngest sister, Kim Yo-Jong is widely seen as the most logical successor to lead North Korea should her older brother cark it.
She’s part of the Kim bloodline, she’s young, she’s already in a powerful position in North Korean politics, and she’s frequently appeared with her brother at public events.
As nice as it would be to have another female world leader (so to speak in this case given how North Korea is, well, a dictatorship), Kim Yo-Jong taking over the reins from Kim Jong-Un is unlikely because, uh, she’s a woman and the patriarchy will frown upon that.
So with Kim Jong-Un’s children being too young to lead North Korea and his siblings either dead, not manly or not male enough, it doesn’t leave many options to continue the Kim dynasty. There is an uncle still alive, but that possibility is basically zero given that uncle’s lack of power and how Kim Jong-Un likes executing his uncles.
This means Kim Jong-Un and North Korea are left with three possible scenarios:
- Have a sibling succeed him, which is unlikely for reasons outlined above
- Install someone from outside the family as leader or puppet leader, which is also unlikely due to the blood-line/family thing
- A power struggle between North Korean politics over who gets to be the big dog, which is a possibility but also unlikely.
At the end of the day, no one really knows what will happen because something like this has never happened before in history, especially North Korean history. We gave it a good crack at explaining what’s going to happen if Kim Jong-Un dies, but we’ll have to just wait and see what becomes of the country should the pearly gates get an unexpected arrival from the Kim family.
We may mock Game Of Thrones for how messy it became, but it seems like once again life is stranger than fiction based on all this drama stemming from the possibility of Kim Jong-Un prematurely carking it.
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