The general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (Korean: 조선로동당 총비서) is the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), the ruling party in North Korea, and the country's supreme leader. Party rules stipulate that the party congress elects the general secretary. The party conference and the Central Committee are empowered to remove and elect the party leader. The general secretary is ex officio Chairman of the WPK Central Military Commission and leads the work of the secretariat.[1] Additionally, the general secretary is by right of office member of the WPK Presidium, the WPK Politburo and the WPK Secretariat.
The offices of Chairman and Vice Chairman of the WPK Central Committee were abolished on 12 October 1966 and replaced with the offices of General Secretary and Secretary of the WPK Central Committee by a decision of the 14th Plenary Session of the 4th Central Committee.[11] Kim Il Sung was elected and remained in office until his death on 8 July 1994.[12] The post was abolished and replaced by the office of General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea on 8 October 1997 after having been left vacant for 3 years and 92 days.[13]Kim Jong Il was elected to the office by a joint announcement of the 6th Central Committee and the 6th Central Military Commission.[13] Kim Jong Il remained in office until his death on 17 December 2011. The office of General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea was left vacant for 116 days and was later abolished. Instead, Kim Jong Un was elected First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea on 11 April 2012, and his father, Kim Jong Il, was given the appellation "Eternal General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea".[14] On 9 May 2016, the 7th WPK Congress abolished the office of First Secretary and the Secretariat and replaced it with Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea and the office of Vice Chairman of the WPK Central Committee.[15] A similar change took place at the 8th WPK Congress, where the offices of chairman and vice chairman were abolished and replaced by the office of General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and the Secretariat.[16]
^Kim Jong Un was leader of the WPK under the title of "First Secretary" from 11 April 2012 until 9 May 2016 and "Chairman" from 9 May 2016 until 10 January 2021.
Gause, Ken E. (2011). North Korea Under Kim Chong-il: Power, Politics, and Prospects for Change. ABC-CLIO. ISBN978-0313381751.
Gause, Ken (2013). "The Role and Influence of the Party Apparatus". In Park, Kyung-ae; Snyder, Scott (eds.). North Korea in Transition: Politics, Economy, and Society. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 19–46. ISBN978-1442218123.