North Korea’s Kim re-elected to lead ruling party at congress: Report

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been re-elected as the General Secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party at a rare congress, state media said Monday (February 23, 2026).

The decision was made Sunday (February 22) — day four of the congress — “in accordance with the unshakable will and unanimous desire of all the delegates”, the Korean Central News Agency said.

Under the leadership of Mr. Kim, “the war deterrence of the country with the nuclear forces as its pivot has been radically improved,” the KCNA report said.

Held just once every five years, the days-long party congress offers a rare glimpse into the workings of a nation where even mundane details are shrouded in secrecy.

The gathering directs state efforts on everything from house building to war planning.

In his speech to open the congress on Thursday, Mr. Kim vowed to lift living standards, offering a glimpse of the economic strains affecting his sanctions-hit nation.

“Today, our party is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people’s standard of living and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible,” Mr. Kim said.

For decades, nuclear weapons and military prowess came before everything else in North Korea, even as food stocks dried up and famine took hold.

But since assuming power in 2011, Kim has stressed the need to also fortify the impoverished nation’s economy.

At the last party congress in 2021, Kim made an extremely rare admission that mistakes had been made in “almost all areas” of economic development.

Mr. Kim has already declared this year’s congress will unveil the next phase in the nation’s nuclear weapons programme.

State media reported Monday (February 23) that during Sunday’s session, the party also voted to revise its own rules with a view towards “consolidating the Party ranks in a qualitative way” and ensuring “impartiality in applying the Party discipline.”

It is just the ninth time the Workers’ Party congress has convened under the Kim family’s decades-long rule.

The meeting was shelved under Kim’s father Kim Jong Il, but was revived in 2016.

Mr. Kim has spent years stoking his cult of personality in reclusive North Korea, and the congress offers another chance to demonstrate his absolute grip on power.