Two years after suffering a stroke and reportedly in poor health, the 68-year-old is believed to be bolstering his plan to take the Kim dynasty into a third generation - appointing his heir to a senior position at the Workers' Party conference.
But the succession process is shrouded in secrecy.
Little is known about the third and youngest son - Kim Jong Un - widely believed to be his father's favourite and described as his 'spitting image'.
Thought to be in his late 20s and schooled in Switzerland, he has never been mentioned in state media and there are no confirmed photos of him as an adult.
Kim Jong Un is however said to enjoy popular culture and is understood to be a fan of NBA basketball and movies starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
He also shares some of the ailing leader's health problems and is already said to have diabetes and heart disease because of a lack of exercise.
It is unclear which party position he might take up but whatever the role, it will be the young man's first known official job.
South Korean officials did not even know how to spell his name until last year.
According to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), delegates will meet on September 28 to elect their new party leaders.
The meeting, initially set for 'early September', had been postponed but reports did not reveal why.
State media began building up the rhetoric ahead of the conference, the first major Workers' Party gathering since the landmark 1980 congress where Kim Jong Il, then 38, made his political debut.
At the time, that appearance was seen as confirmation he would eventually succeed his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.
Kim Jong Il took over in 1994 when his father died of heart failure in communism's first hereditary transfer of power.
Now, he appears to be prepping Kim Jong Un for a similar transition.
The conference announcement could mean that North Korea has ended internal debate and 'reached a final conclusion' on the succession process, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul-based University of North Korean Studies.
'I believe North Korea has decided to give the successor an official title but not to make it public to the outside world.'
Speculation on the North's succession intensified after Kim suffered a stroke in 2008, sparking concerns about instability in the nuclear-armed country if he were to die without anointing a successor.
He is also said to be suffering from diabetes and a kidney ailment.
South Korean intelligence officers believe Pyongyang has launched a propaganda campaign promoting the son, including songs and poems praising the junior Kim.
North Korean soldiers and workers reportedly pledged allegiance to the son on his birthday in January.
Next week, delegates are expected to elect new party leaders to fill spots left vacant for years.
Close attention will also be focused on Kim Jong Il's only sister, Kim Kyong Hui, who in the past two years has been a frequent companion to the leader on field trips to army bases and factories.
She currently serves as the political party's department chief for light industry.
Her husband, Jang Song Thaek, has also been rising in stature. Jang was promoted in June to a vice chairman of the powerful National Defence Commission, making him the Number 2 official to Kim Jong Il on the regime's top state organ.
Earlier this week, former American President Jimmy Carter said Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao told him Kim disputed the prospective promotion of his youngest son as a 'false rumour' - underscoring the difficulty of reading the isolated regime.
'I was amazed when he made that statement,' he said.
'He said that Kim Jong Il made a flat statement that his succession story was a false Western rumour.'
Carter made a rare trip to Pyongyang last month to secure the release of an imprisoned American but did not meet Kim, who was in China at the time.
The conference is being held amid preparations for the milestone 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party on October 10, improving relations with Seoul, and attempts by diplomats from neighbouring nations to revive dormant six-nation disarmament negotiations on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
North Korea walked away from the talks last year in protest over U.N. Security Council condemnation for launching a long-range rocket, widely seen as a test of its missile technology.
It has been struggling to cope with devastating flooding and a typhoon that killed dozens of people and destroyed roads, railways and homes earlier this month, according to state media.
Delegates across the country were appointed 'against the background of a high-pitched drive for effecting a new great revolutionary surge now under way on all fronts for building a thriving nation with the historic conference,' the KCNA report said.
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