Anecdote

Eternal President

On September 5, 1998, the mass media around the world listened attentively to Radio Pyongyang.

The First Session of the Tenth Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK was to be opened with in a few minutes; at the session a new state leadership body, its new president in particular, would be elected. For this reason, the meeting was a matter of great interest to the whole world.

Nobody had ever doubted that Kim Jong Il would be elected President of the DPRK. It was regarded as such a certainty that some foreign reports had even written articles anticipating the nationwide cheering at the news.

Radio Pyongyang’s broadcast, however, confounded everybody. People around the world could hardly believe their eyes and ears. Kim Il Sung was acclaimed as the eternal President of the DPRK!

It was normal practice to elect a new head of state on the very day the previous head died, within a few days at the latest. But in the DPRK a full four years had passed since the death of President Kim Il Sung without a new president being elected.

At the ceremony held after this long postponement, Kim Jong Il saw to it that Kim Il Sung was acclaimed as the eternal President of the DPRK. So, what was his intention?

As early as in July 1994, when the whole country was mourning the sudden death of President Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il declared:

“Although he has passed away, it is my firm determination to have leader Kim Il Sung, who made such an extraordinary contribution to our country and people, to the world and mankind, and who enjoyed the highest respect and reverence, as the one and only President, as the first and eternal President in the history of our country.”

He went on that the title President Kim Il Sung, which was so dear to the whole of mankind, should be etched in the history of Korea, and that the younger generations should always refer to Kim Il Sung when they used the word President. He then stated that he was determined to uphold for eternity the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, just as he had in his lifetime, based on this viewpoint and attitude, and thus Kim Il Sung would be upheld as the one and only President in the history of Korea.

Kim Jong Il ensured that the recording of the policy speech Kim Il Sung had delivered at the First Session of the Ninth Supreme People’s Assembly was replayed as a substitute for his own policy speech at the current session.