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Leader Tightens Hold on Power in North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, was re-elected as head of his country’s top governing agency as its rubber-stamp Parliament met in Pyongyang on Wednesday to help consolidate his power by filling top leadership posts vacated in recent purges.

Mr. Kim’s re-election as first chairman of the National Defense Commission indicated that he remained firmly in control despite tightened United Nations sanctions and political upheavals that have rocked the government.

Since succeeding his father, Kim Jong-il, in late 2011, Mr. Kim has sidelined many military leaders and members of the ruling Workers’ Party elite. In December, he executed Jang Song-thaek, his uncle, who had long been presumed to be the second most influential man in Pyongyang, the capital.

Mr. Kim revamped the Supreme People’s Assembly early last month by calling a general election in which state-appointed candidates ran unopposed and all the members won their seats with 100 percent support.

On Wednesday, the legislature met in Pyongyang in a session widely seen as a formality in which Mr. Kim would fill major posts left vacant by the purges with younger cadres who would owe their loyalty to him.

Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, the top political officer in the North Korean People’s Army who has emerged as a rising star under Mr. Kim, was elected as one of the three vice chairmen of the National Defense Commission on Wednesday, filling a post vacated by Mr. Jang’s execution.

Vice Marshal Choe, 64, “is now the true No. 2 man in the Kim Jong-un regime,” said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the Sejong Institute in Seongnam, South Korea. On Wednesday, the Supreme People’s Assembly also replaced cabinet ministers, including those in charge of the oil and coal and metal industries.

Yet Mr. Kim also appeared to emphasize continuity, retaining Kim Yong-nam, 86, as president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, who serves as a nominal head of state, and Pak Pong-ju as premier, a post in charge of the economy.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: Leader Tightens Hold on Power in North Korea. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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