North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is delegating power to people close to him, including his sister Kim Yo-young, according to South Korean intelligence.
She is actually involved in policy on behalf of her brother.
“The power-sharing is to make Kim Jong-un less stressed and possibly blame others than the dictator himself if the policy fails,” said members of the Secret Service in a briefing in the South Korean parliament. They don’t think this has anything to do with the search for a successor.
Top figures such as the new Prime Minister Kim Tok-hun have also been given the power to make economic policy. The Secret Service also points out that the usual summer manoeuvres of the North Korean forces are much more modest this year than in previous years.
The 33-year-old sister is quite puzzling, just like an isolated country. She studied in Switzerland in the late 1990s. She appeared in a photo of the Workers’ Party of Korea in 2010.
At the end of 2011, after the death of her father Kim Jong-il, she came into the picture, but she was not mentioned by name. That has only happened since 2014, the year she was suddenly presented as a significant person in the ruling Workers’ Party.
Since then, she has been seen active alongside her brother several times.