Heir ‘too’ apparent: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un seen twinning with daughter, fuels succession rumours

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has once again put the spotlight on his teenage daughter, Ju Ae, as they appeared in matching leather jackets at a recent high-profile military parade.

Photos released by the state media to mark the closing of the ruling Workers’ Party Congress showed Kim and his daughter Ju Ae standing side by side on stage. They sported matching black leader jackets, with Kim’s wife, Ri Sol Ju, also seen alongside them in similar attire.

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The images have sparked speculations that Ju Ae is being groomed as Kim’s successor. According to observers of the North Korean’s affairs, the matching leather jackets were not merely a fashion statement but an indication that Ju Ae is indeed going to be the heir.

According to analyst Lim Eul-chul, the look carries weight in North Korea’s political symbolism as it is tied to the image of the leader as the ultimate guarantor of national security and future prosperity.

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“So when that same symbolic attire is put on his young daughter, it’s hard to see it as accidental,” Eul-chul is quoted as saying by Radio France Internationale.

For the world, Ju Ae didn’t even exist until 2013, when former NBA player Dennis Rodman acknowledged that Kim had a daughter. Roadman visited North Korea and apparently met Kim and his family.

However, Ju Ae was first introduced to the world only in 2022 when she made a public appearance alongside her father during an intercontinental ballistic missile launch.

Since then, she has been spotted at several high-profile events accompanying Kim. While North Korea has not made it official whether Ju Ae will be Kim’s heir, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service recently assessed that she has indeed been “designated as a successor.”