After the sudden death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, attention swings to his third son, Kim Jong Eun, who has been formally named as the new leader of the isolated country.
But a smooth transition of power is far from certain.
Analysts say Kim Jong Eun's youth, inexperience and lack of public exposure raise significant questions about whether he can, or even will, run the country. That represents a significant risk of political instability in the country in the near-term.
Bruce Klinger, Korea analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, said the younger Kim's need for support from senior military and political leaders means that he's unlikely to be open to political and economic reforms. "If anything, he may have to take a hardline policy as a way of proving himself to challengers or to these senior leaders," Mr. Klinger said.
Kim Jong Eun, believed to be in his late 20s, according to South Korea's unification ministry, was effectively appointed to succeed to his father in September last year when the ruling Worker's Party of Korea handed him the post of four-star general in the Korean People's Army and a position on the military commission of the party. Before the announcement, he had never been mentioned by North Korea's state media.
Little is known about Kim Jong Eun. North Korean watchers say he studied for a few years as a teenager in Switzerland and then at a military academy in Pyongyang, and his ascent to power has accelerated after his father suffered a stroke-like illness in August 2008.
During the last transition of power in North Korea, Kim Jong Il was a far better known quantity to North Koreans and outsiders than Kim Jong Eun is today. While the younger Kim has only been in the North Korean public eye for a year, when Kim Il Sung died in 1994, Kim Jong Il had been known by North Koreans for 20 years. And from the early 1980s, he was portrayed as active in government policy-making.
Some analysts expect Kim Jong Il's sister Kim Kyong Hui and her husband, a close aide to Kim Jong Il named Jang Song Taek, will act as regents for Kim Jong Eun to help him gain some power within the party as well as the military. Some raise questions whether the couple will pose as rivals to the younger man, however.
"All we've really seen is expectations of what Kim Jong Il wanted to happen after he died," said Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Foundation in Washington, an independent group promoting understanding of Asia in the U.S. "What will be interesting to see now is whether the plan he was apparently putting together goes forward or whether we get something very different."
Since Kim Jong Eun's public appointment, he has frequently been spotted with his father on the elder Mr. Kim's regular inspections of military and other facilities. He is thought by North Korea watchers to have been carefully groomed to resemble his grandfather, the revered founder of North Korea Kim Il Sung, in order to boost his legitimacy with the North Korean people.
In announcing the death of the elder Mr. Kim Monday morning, an announcer on North Korean state television said: "We must fight with greater resolve to overcome today's crisis, behind comrade Kim Jung Eun's leadership, for another great victory for the Juche revolution." Juche is North Korea's state ideology, which emphasizes independence and self-determination.
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