30th October, 2015
Ruling Korean Workers Party in North Korea on Friday announced that it would hold its congress in May, 2016, 36 years after the last one was held.
The move is being made few weeks after the 70th anniversary celebration of the founding of the party, held on Oct. 10.
“The Politburo has decided to hold the 7th party congress at the start of May, 2016,’’ a statement by the party said in Seoul.
It would allow “epoch-making changes in accomplishing the revolutionary cause of Juche, the cause of building a thriving socialist nation,” the statement said.
Juche is the country’s ideology upon which policies had been made since its independence.
It said that the proposed congress would be the first for the party since 1980 and did not give further details.
Observers in South Korea speculated that the North’s ruler, Kim Un, could use the congress to strengthen the party, choose a new group of leaders and set out new political guidelines.
At the last congress, the assent of Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, to the key leadership position was made official.
Jong Il died in December 2011, a development that saw his son becoming the party’s leader and president of the nation.