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 North Korea's state media, which usually chronicles the
31-year-old's whereabouts in great detail, has not made any mention
of Kim's activities since he appeared at a concert with his wife on
Sept. 3.
Friday is the 69th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's
Workers' Party, an event Kim has marked in the past two years with a
post-midnight visit to the Pyongyang mausoleum where the bodies of
his father and grandfather are interred.
"Should he fail to appear, it will fuel speculation that the young
North Korean leader has fallen on hard times of one kind or
another," said Curtis Melvin, a researcher at the U.S.-Korea
Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies in Washington.
"The longer he remains out of the public eye, the more uncertainty
about him, and the status of his regime, will grow."
Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, often appeared in state media at party
events or factory visits on the Oct. 10 anniversary, newspaper
archives show.
North Korean officials have denied that Kim's public absence since
early September is health-related and a U.S. official following
North Korea said this week there were no indications he was
seriously ill or in political trouble.
Speculation that Kim's unusually long absence from public view may
be due to ill health was fueled by a North Korean TV report late
last month that he was suffering from "discomfort".
Some Pyongyang-watchers also suggest that Kim may have been
sidelined in a power struggle, a scenario they say was reinforced by
the unexpected visit on Saturday of a high-level delegation to the
closing ceremony of the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea. Another
interpretation of that visit holds that it was meant to convey
stability in Pyongyang.
"It would have to be a very subtle coup indeed not to disrupt
international travel plans," said Andray Abrahamian of the Choson
Exchange, a Singapore-based NGO currently running a program for
North Koreans in Southeast Asia.
North Korea is a hereditary dictatorship centered on the ruling Kim
family. Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, is known to have an official role
within the ruling party. His brother, Kim Jong Chol, and his
estranged half-brother are not in the public eye.
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This is not the first time Kim Jong Un has been missing from public
view. In June 2012, six months after coming to power, state media
failed to report on or photograph him for 23 days. He re-surfaced
the next month at a dolphinarium.
Kim, who has rapidly gained weight since coming to power after his
father died of a heart attack in 2011, had been seen walking with a
limp since an event with key officials in July.
He was absent from a Sept. 25 meeting of the Supreme People's
Assembly, or parliament, the first he has not attended since coming
to power three years ago.
However, Kim's name has not disappeared from state propaganda.
Thursday's edition of the Workers' Party newspaper, the Rodong
Sinmun, carried three letters to Kim from overseas allies on its
front page, and has reported on returning athletes from the Asian
Games who thanked "the Marshal" for his support during the
competition.
Abrahamian said he believes Kim's absence has been due to health
reasons, and not that he's been usurped.
"Kim Jong Un has always shared power with other key figures and even
if the internal balance of power has shifted, it is unlikely that
they would want to remove him, given his unmatchable symbolic value.
Again, though, everyone is guessing," he said.
(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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