SEUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his top deputies have launched a crackdown on officials who abuse their power and commit other “non-revolutionary and non-revolutionary acts,” the report said on Monday. state media, while Kim seeks more internal unity to overcome a COVID-19 outbreak and economic hardship.
It was unclear what specific acts were mentioned at Sunday’s Labor Party government meeting. But possible state crackdowns on these alleged acts could be an attempt to consolidate Kim’s control over her people and get them to rally behind her leadership in the face of domestic difficulties, some observers say.
Kim and other senior party secretaries discussed “lifting a more intense fight against non-revolutionary and non-revolutionary acts, including abuse of power and bureaucracy revealed among some party officials,” the Korea Central News Agency said. .
Kim ordered that the authority of the party’s audit committee and other local discipline oversight systems be strengthened to promote the party’s “monolithic leadership” and “the party’s broad political activities through the strong system of discipline.” , said KCNA.
Kim has occasionally called for a fight against “anti-socialist practices” at home over the past two years amid external concerns over her country’s fragile economy, which has been hit by pandemic-related border closures, and sanctions. UN and its own mismanagement.
According to some experts, the high restrictions on the movement of the north due to the explosion of COVID-19 could cause additional tension to the country’s economic difficulties.
On May 12, North Korea admitted that the omicron variant of coronavirus had infected people, and later said that about 4.5 million people, more than 17% of its 26 million people, had contracted fever and only 72 have died. Foreign experts widely doubt that the outbreak was North Korea’s first, and believe that statistics published in the state media are being manipulated to prevent political harm to Kim while strengthening internal control and promoting his leadership.
During a Labor Party conference last week, Kim said the pandemic situation had passed the “severe crisis” stage and ordered officials to remedy “deficiencies and ills in anti-epidemic work” and take action. to build the fight against the country’s epidemic. pandemic capacity.