Life without Kim? N.Korea thinks the unthinkable

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - There is no obvious heir to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, so if he is seriously ill, as a flurry of reports have said, the secretive state faces a giant leap into the unknown and possibly a bitter struggle for the succession.

Analysts say the son of founding president Kim Il-sung has so distanced himself from his ruling elite that no one seems handily placed to mount a grab for power even if Kim's health is failing. North Korean officials deny that he is ill.

If there is a battle for the leadership, a good guide to what might happen is the early post-Korean War history of bitter rival South Korea when shadowy generals shot to power, they said.

Kim's failure to appear at Tuesday's gala celebrations for the state's 60th birthday fuelled speculation he might be seriously ill. South Korean officials said the 66-year-old leader had suffered a stroke but his hold on power was intact.

"The issue of power succession now has to be the key political question (in the North)," said Paik Hak-soon, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Sejong Institute think tank.

His hand-picked caretakers are mostly members of the ageing revolutionary guard, many themselves in questionable health.

In the event of Kim's demise, a potential successor might well emerge from the second tier of military ranks, Peter Beck of American University in Washington said.

That would mirror the rise to power of Park Chung-hee, who seized power in Seoul as a junior general in 1960 and, during two decades of autocratic rule, put the South on course to be an industrial power.