N. Korean ruling party to elect new leaders

SEOUL, June 26: North Korea's ruling communist party said Saturday it would convene a meeting of party representatives in September to elect new leaders, Pyongyang's official media reported.

The session would be "for electing its (the party's) highest leading body," said an announcement carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

It will be only the third such meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since the communist state was founded in 1948 and would likely designate leader Kim Jong-Il's son as his political heir, an analyst said.

"The Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee decides to convene early in September, Juche 99 (the year 2010), a conference of the WPK for electing its highest leading body," KCNA said.

"We are now faced with the sacred revolutionary tasks to develop the WPK... into an eternal glorious party of (North Korea's deceased founding father) Kim Il-Sung and further increase its militant function and role to glorify the country as a great prosperous and powerful socialist nation," it said.

AFP