According to reports, North Korea's ailing leader Kim Jong Un is increasingly becoming too fragile in spearheading the world's most secluded country. His absence in many important events of the country intrigues many nations.
It is said that Kim Jong Un had a heart condition and he recently undergo a survery. It includeds the process of inserting a tube to his blood vessel. However, it appears that he is not coping well with the medical procedure as Shukan Gendai reports that he is now in "vegetative state."
Senior ruling party official Kim Yo Jong, Kim's younger sister, is the most likely candidate to replace the 36-year-old leader if he becomes severely ill, incapacitated, or dies.
The possibility of much instability raised distressing questions with regard to the future of the nuclear-armed state that has been consistently building an arsenal aimed to threaten the U.S. mainland in the midst of stalled talks between Kim and American President Donald Trump.
According to South Korea's presidential office, Kim was seemingly handling state affairs normally and that they had no information regarding rumors about his health.
Kim's younger sister is now seen as the North Korean dictator's "alter ego" as concerns grow for his health condition.
Thirty-one-year-old Kim Yo-jong is now regarded as the most important figure after her brother in the tyrannical regime.
She has represented Kim at the 2018 Winter Olympics that took place in Pyeongchang, South Korea and has procured reputable titles within the ruling Workers' party. She is reportedly the brains behind the meticulously constructed public image of Kim at home and abroad.
The reclusive dictator has no identified successor or heir apparent.
The Kim family has governed the secluded Communist nation for the past seven decades. Kim took over his father, Kim Jong Il, after he died in 2011. Their dynasty is identified in their nation as the Mount Paektu Bloodline, a three-generation lineage of North Korean leadership that descended from the nation's first leader, Kim Il-sung.
Also Read: Where is Kim Jong Un? North Korean Leader's Whereabouts a Mystery as State Media Remains Silent
If one would listen to American intelligence officials, Kim is at death's door, while if one would listen to South Korean officials, he is not. Meanwhile, North Korea has not provided such information.
There has been a steady stream of rumors regarding the dictator's poor health since last summer. It was said that it comes with no surprise that attention is now turning to his possible successor because he is morbidly obese and his family' has a history of heart disease.
The absence of the North Korean leader from the public eye since April 11 was paired with reports regarding his ill health owing to a major heart surgery and has bolstered speculations about a leadership crisis in North Korea.
Some experts said that collective leadership, which could mark the end of the family's dynastic rule, is a possibility.
"Among the North's power elite, Kim Yo Jong has the highest chance to inherit power and I think that possibility is more than 90 percent," according to analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea.
Many people will be observing closely for any signs of issues in North Korea and whether it will address the rumors, an action it has not done yet.
North Korea and the United States appeared to be driving towards war in 2017, with both countries trading criticism and threats of jeopardy. The next two years witnessed a surprising series of summits, alongside 3 summits between Kim and Trump.
