Kim Jong-un ‘in coma, sister Kim Yo-jong taking charge’

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is reportedly in a coma, with his younger sister set to take the reins in Pyongyang, reports The Australian. 

The claims, reported in South Korean media, were made by a former aide to South Korea’s late president Kim Dae-Young days after Mr Kim passed some powers to his sister Kim Yo-jong.

Chang Song-min told South Korean media: “I assess him to be in a coma, but his life has not ended.

“A complete succession structure has not been formed, so Kim Yo-jong is being brought to the fore as the vacuum cannot be maintained for a prolonged period.”

Last week, North Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) announced Mr Kim would gradually transfer some powers to Ms Kim “to ease stress,” although the young dictator would still “exert absolute power”.

Mr Kim, said to be aged around 36, disappeared for several weeks earlier this year, triggering speculation that he was seriously ill amid rumours of a botched heart operation to fit a stent.

The rumours were quashed when he was seen at a fertiliser factory’s opening ceremony in Suchon, 28km north of the country’s capital Pyongyang. However North Korea watchers said it was impossible to verify the actual date of the visit.

“Chairman Kim Jong-un is still maintaining his absolute authority, but some of it has been handed over little by little,” Yonhap, South Korea’s news agency, reported on Thursday, quoting the national intelligence service. He was shifting power “to relieve stress from his reign and avert culpability in the event of policy failure,” it added.

Mr Kim last week admitted the North Korean economy was struggling in the face of US sanctions, the pandemic and devastating floods, an extremely rare acknowledgment in the one party state.

The official Korean Central News Agency quoted Mr Kim, after a meeting with senior leaders, as saying: “The economy was not improved in the face of the sustaining severe internal and external situations and unexpected manifold challenges. Thereby planned attainment of the goals for improving the national economy have been seriously delayed and the people’s living standard not been improved remarkably.”

Mr Kim, who has been in power since 2011 after the death of his father, sacked his premier the week before last after an evaluation of the cabinet’s implementation of economic policies.