The Crisis of Korean Democracy in the Aftermath of the April 19 Revolution

Lee Young-il

Former Member of the National Assembly Chairperson

                                     Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, 

                                                                                                            The Congressperson’s Sociaty, The Republic of Korea

1. Introduction

This year marks the 66th anniversary of the April 19 Democratic Revolution. The revolution was triggered by the blatant electoral fraud committed by the ruling Liberal Party in 1960, provoking nationwide public outrage. In response, young university students rose up simultaneously across the country, taking to the streets in collective demonstrations and demanding a new election by chanting, “Hold the election again.” The Liberal Party regime attempted to suppress these protests by force through the police, resulting in a tragic loss of life: more than 180 young students were killed and over 1,000 others were injured. This, in turn, led the entire nation to rise in protest. President Syngman Rhee, then already advanced in age, accepted responsibility for the fraudulent election and resigned. The Liberal Party government collapsed, and, through a general election, the Democratic Party came to power, inaugurating the Second Republic.

Students do not constitute a class in the socioeconomic sense, but rather a distinct social status group. The April 19 Revolution was a political revolution led by university students and brought to a successful conclusion through their initiative. Through this revolution, the Korean people came to realize afresh that sovereignty in the Republic of Korea does not reside in the president or in state officials, but in the people themselves. In that sense, it was a democratic revolution grounded in the principle of popular sovereignty.

For a people who had lived for centuries under monarchy, and who had experienced only twelve years of life under a democratic republic, it was not easy to develop a firm conviction that they themselves were the sovereign. At that historical juncture, however, intellectuals, especially university students who had learned the values of democracy in school, witnessed the reality of electoral fraud in politics and concluded that if even intellectuals turned away from such injustice, democratic development in Korea would be impossible. With this sense of urgency, they came out almost spontaneously into the streets to denounce the rigged election. Today, some 600 of those who fell in connection with those events rest at the National April 19 Revolution Cemetery in Suyu-ri.

At the time, the Liberal Party regime declared martial law in an effort to suppress the protests, and troops entered Seoul with tanks at the front. Yet rather than confronting soldiers trained not to retreat in battle, the demonstrators welcomed the martial law forces with open arms, declaring, “The soldiers are on our side.” Once the military and the people ceased to stand in hostility toward one another and instead embraced one another, the regime’s hope of preserving power through military force evaporated. Ultimately, President Rhee stepped down, taking responsibility for his failure to prevent the fraudulent election. In this way, the April 19 Revolution succeeded in removing the Liberal Party regime and came to be remembered in history as a successful revolution. As a result, the Constitution of the Republic of Korea incorporated into its Preamble both the spirit of March 1, which pursued nonviolent struggle under the principle of public commitment, and the spirit of April 19, which transformed a student-led protest into a successful revolution through reconciliation rather than violent confrontation with martial law forces. Both were recognized as consistent with the constitutional values of the Republic.

The success of the April 19 Revolution, however, did not mean that Korean democracy immediately took root as a fully mature democracy. Looking back over the past 66 years, Korean democracy has advanced through repeated trials and errors. Moreover, democracies around the world today are facing crises in various forms, and Korea is no exception. The following discussion therefore examines the major factors underlying the present crisis of democratic politics in Korea and considers possible alternatives.

2. The Crisis of Democracy Across Historical Periods

A. The Era of President Syngman Rhee

The fact that liberated Korea became a democratic republic oriented toward liberal democracy and a market economy was the product of President Syngman Rhee’s choice and determination. After joining the Independence Club in 1894, he argued through the Manmin Joint Assembly in 1899 that Chosun should reform its political system into a constitutional monarchy with both a constitution and a parliament. For this, he was branded a traitor, sentenced to life imprisonment, and spent more than five years in Hanseong Prison before being released through a special pardon. During his imprisonment, he encountered Western political and intellectual thought through books sent by missionaries. On the basis of that knowledge, he wrote The Spirit of Independence, a seminal work that may reasonably be regarded as Korea’s first major Book on treatise in political thought. In that work, he introduced the political systems of various countries and described American democracy, in which the people directly elect their leader, as “perfect.” Later, while in exile in Hawaii, he closely observed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and, in 1923, published an article titled “The Rightness and Wrongness of Communism” in The Pacific, a small monthly magazine he himself produced. There he acknowledged that communism had certain strengths in its pursuit of equality, including the abolition of status-based discrimination, but criticized its abolition of private property, denial of religious freedom, and theory of the disappearance of the state as fundamentally unjustifiable.

Firmly convinced that the liberated Korean nation had to be built upon liberal democracy, he consistently upheld an anti-communist position and rejected communism under any circumstances. While touring major cities south of the 38th parallel to oppose trusteeship, he sought to educate the public by arguing that liberal democracy was Korea’s path to survival and that Soviet communism, which denied private property, had to be opposed. As a leading figure in the independence movement, he presided over the establishment of the Constitution through a free general election conducted under United Nations supervision and was elected president. At the time, his leadership was unmistakably charismatic, as reflected in the title “Father of the Nation.” Having first been chosen as president of the Provisional Government in Shanghai(1919), he later became the first Speaker of the National Assembly and the first President of the Republic of Korea during the process of liberation and state building. After the political crisis in Busan, he was elected the second president through direct popular election under the so-called extracted constitutional amendment. In 1954, a constitutional revision exempting only the first president from term limits enabled him to win a third term(1956). Then, in the March 15, 1960 election, following the sudden death of the Democratic Party candidate just before the vote, he became the fourth president without contest. Nevertheless, he resigned from office after failing to prevent massive fraud in the vice-presidential election, thereby bringing his political career to an end.

President Rhee was firmly committed to liberal democracy in both state-building and national defense. Yet the charismatic leadership that had been central to his historical role did not translate into a model for the peaceful transfer of power, which is among the most important requirements for democratic consolidation. His charisma enabled him to overcome the destructive turmoil of liberation, establish the state, repel North Korea’s invasion, defend the country, and conclude the ROK-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty through diplomacy with the United States, thereby laying the foundation for national security. At the same time, however, charismatic leadership often makes peaceful political succession difficult. When a turbulent era gives way to one of relative stability, leadership must also evolve, but Syngman Rhee, who was already 85 years old at the time, was no longer in a position to adapt. His practical capacity to manage the affairs of state had diminished. In the language of Vilfred Pareto’s theory of elite circulation, he had entered a stage of “physical decline.” Fortunately, when confronted with this crisis, he resigned the presidency, nullified the fraudulent election, and made it possible for democratic politics to revive through a new election and a new government. It is therefore more appropriate to view his departure not as that of an anti-democratic tyrant, but as the withdrawal of a statesman who, despite his failings, remained fundamentally committed to liberal democracy.

B. Military Rule and the Crisis of Democracy

Following the April 19 Revolution, Korea experienced on two separate occasions the collapse and establishment of governments by outside the constitutional order. As is well known, the Democratic Party government formed after April 19 has failed to suggest new vision for the people whose urgent need was de-poverty and lacked to respond 1960’ National ethos, that is, Modernization. It also lacked the political leadership necessary to restore law and order amid the political and social confusion that followed the revolution. In particular, New government was too lazy to disclose the korean army’s election rigging which was oren secret among military men. By these mistakes young officials in Korean army strongly asked government to punish military Generals who commted electinal rigging and give them strong punishmen. This became the immediate nomination for the “military purification” faction within the armed forces to move against the Democratic Party government and establish a revolutionary regime. This becme military coup’detat.

Disillusioned by the chaos that followed April 19 and by the incompetence of the Democratic Party government, the public placed its hopes in the military as a new political force and responded favorably to its pledge to “make anti-communism the national creed and resolve the suffering of the people wandering on the line of despair and hunger.”

General Park Chung-hee, who came to power through a coup d’?tat, used the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction as a functional substitute for the legislature. While enacting a wide range of reform laws intended to eliminate corruption and disorder and to pursue economic modernization, he did not deny the principle that the people were sovereign. He pledged both domestically and internationally to transfer power back to civilian rule, ran for president, and narrowly defeated opposition candidate Yun Posun, thereby establishing a degree of political legitimacy for his administration. Thereafter, although he was constitutionally re-elected, his subsequent eighteen years in office were sustained through a series of anti-constitutional, dictatorial measures, including the constitutional amendment permitting a third term, extraordinary security measures, emergency decrees, and ultimately the Yushin system. Despite his remarkable contributions to national strengthening and modernization, his assassination at the hands of one of his own subordinates effectively bound his own fate to that of the regime. It was a classic end to dictatorial rule. Although his rule is at times described as “developmental dictatorship” in recognition of his role in economic development, he too failed to establish an example of peaceful political succession.

For this reason, the power struggle among the so-called “three Kims”?Kim Jong-pil, Kim Young-sam, and Kim Dae-jung?after Park’s death plunged the country into severe political upheaval, including the tragedy of May 18, and in turn created the conditions for the military once again to seize power.

C. The New Military Group and the Single-Term Presidency

Chun Doo-hwan, who came to power through the December 12 Incident, used the Standing Committee for National Security as a substitute legislative body, enacted numerous reform laws, and, following the procedures of the Yushin Constitution then in effect, was elected president through the so-called “gymnasium election,” thereby establishing a basis of legitimacy for his rule. In order to correct what had been the most serious weakness of the Park Chung-hee system namely, the abuses associated with prolonged one-man rule he introduced a single presidential term through constitutional revision and adhered to that commitment. During his eight years in office, despite the problematic nature of his accession to power, he observed the single-term constitutional framework and continued, in a developmental manner, the domestic and foreign policy foundations laid by Presidents Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee. During this period, Korea won the right to host the 1988 Seoul Olympics and entered the era of semiconductors and information technology, helping to open what historians later described as part of the “Miracle on the Han River.” By setting an example through his observance of the one-term presidency, Chun opened the way for the peaceful transfer of power both vertical transfers within the ruling camp and horizontal transfers from the ruling party to the opposition. This became the foundation of what is commonly referred to as the 1987 system.

3. The Transformation of Korean Conservatism and the Institutionalization of Rules for Political Succession

President Roh Tae-woo, who succeeded Chun Doo-hwan, agreed to replace the multi-member district system for National Assembly elections which had long worked to the advantage of the ruling party in securing a stable majority with the single-member district system advocated by the opposition. The result of the 13th National Assembly election, however, was a divided government in which the ruling party lost its parliamentary majority. Faced with the loss of governing dynamics, Roh Tae-woo pursued the merger of three parties as a means of overcoming the crisis confronting the ruling camp. Yet this merger had the effect of distorting Korean politics by entrenching a regional cleavage between Honam and non-Honam. Even so, Roh completed his five-year term under the single-term presidency, honoring his commitment and sending former President Chun Doo-hwan, who had passed power on to him, into political purge at Baekdamsa Temple.

From this point onward, Korean democracy entered a phase in which peaceful political succession became institutionally possible. Kim Young-sam, who had built his political base within the ruling camp through the three-party merger, was elected president. Although this was still a vertical transfer of power, the emergence of the Kim Young-sam government in effect marked the end of the old conservative order.

Kim Young-sam’s political forces were not heirs to what Korean conservatism had long regarded as its principal symbolic assets namely, the founding of the Republic, the defense of the Republic from North Korea’s invasion, Economic prosperity, or the “Miracle on the Han River.” In Kim’s own words, his rationale for joining the three-party merger was that he had entered the tiger’s den in order to catch the tiger. Once in power, however, his own faction and the Democratic Justice Party faction, which regarded itself as the legitimate successor to conservative rule, failed to achieve real unity; they remained fundamentally incompatible. Kim spoke positively of the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising and established a national cemetery in its honor. He also initiated food assistance to North Korea through Sokcho Port, repatriated the long-term unconverted prisoner Lee In-mo to the North, and accepted the possibility of an inter-Korean summit. Domestically, however, his presidency was marked by intensifying internal conflict between the former ruling camp and democratic forces within his coalition, and he completed his single five-year term under those conditions. He was succeeded by Kim Dae-jung of the National Congress for New Politics, who won the presidency by mobilizing the (weaponization of regional antagonism) regional structure reinforced by the three-party merger and securing overwhelming support in Honam. For the first time in Korean history, a horizontal transfer of power took place.

With the successive presidencies of Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, and Roh Moo-hyun, the political foundations of Korean conservatism were significantly weakened. Yet the election of Lee Myung-bak after Roh Moo-hyun, followed by the election of Park Geun-hye on the strength of former President Park Chung-hee’s political legacy, appeared to suggest the possibility of conservative revival. That possibility, however, was undermined when President Park Geun-hye, near the end of her term, failed to manage resistance from the Kim Young-sam faction within the party and was impeached. In the aftermath, Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party was elected president, and the conservative camp faced a crisis of near extinction. Subsequently, public support for the Moon administration sharply declined due to the unrealistic nature of its income-led growth doctrine and the major failure of its real estate policy, while its pro-China and pro-North Korea orientation further provoked public distrust and resistance. This led to the election of Yoon Suk Yeol. Although the Yoon administration sought to move away from Moon’s pro-North Korea and pro-China policies, improve relations with the United States, and pursue pragmatic diplomacy thereby creating the conditions for a possible conservative comeback it suffered a decisive defeat in the general election. Lacking the political experience and leadership required to govern under divided government, it failed to fend off the opposition’s impeachment drive, largely because of internal dissent within the ruling party. The public had given the People Power Party 108 seats, enough in principle to block impeachment and constitutional revision, but betrayal from within the party allowed the impeachment bill to pass. Yoon Suk Yeol stepped down, and in the subsequent election Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea was elected president, bringing Korea to its current political moment.

4. The Collapse of Conservative Politics and the Crisis of Democracy

The rise of the Lee Jae-myung administration has made the collapse of conservatism in Korean politics increasingly visible. In earlier periods, conservative forces maintained power under President Syngman Rhee through his charismatic leadership. Under Park Chung-hee’s Democratic Republican Party government, they held on to power by suppressing political challenges in the name of democratization while simultaneously securing legitimacy through tangible achievements in economic development. During the Chun Doo-hwan era, the regime preserved its position by committing to a single presidential term, stabilizing prices, promoting economic growth, seizing the initiative in semiconductors and information technology, and successfully hosting the Olympics. By contrast, former Presidents Lee Myung-bak, Park Geun-hye, and Yoon Suk Yeol all failed to preserve conservative rule, owing to their limited political experience, internal division, and lack of strategy in the face of progressive political offensives. More importantly, they were unable even to politically capitalize on the symbolic achievements of the “Miracle on the Han River,” which had accumulated as a key reservoir of public trust for Korean conservatism. Once Park Geun-hye and Yoon Suk Yeol?two presidents who had come to symbolize Korean conservatism?lost power through impeachment amid internal party conflict, public support for conservative forces was effectively exhausted, and Korean conservatism entered a path of decline.

By contrast, the Democratic Party of Korea, which presents itself as a progressive force, capitalized on divisions within the ruling party, used its overwhelming majority in the National Assembly to drive the president toward impeachment, and ultimately succeeded in returning to power through an election. Since then, public institutions seen as obstacles to its rule have been neutralized either through impeachment or legislation. The party has also sought to secure institutional stability by replacing personnel in election management bodies and the Constitutional Court with figures sympathetic to its own camp, and by attempting to expand the number of Supreme Court justices and appoint additional members from its own side. At the same time, it has weakened the prosecution service as an institution of judicial power and transferred functional authority to the police as an arm of administrative power. It has also promoted the creation of a new crime of “distortion of law,” thereby placing constraints on the constitutional principle that judges should rule according to law and conscience, and even contemplated a system under which the Constitutional Court could review decisions of the Supreme Court, effectively turning a three-tier judicial system into a four-tier one. In the past, the media served as a powerful check on the governing camp by raising concerns over authoritarian drift and criticizing the manner in which power was exercised. Today, however, the media largely confines itself to explaining the changing methods and rules of governance under the Democratic Party. In addition, government cash distributions, initially justified in the name of support for the economically vulnerable, are increasingly becoming normalized as a routine feature of politics. In other words, populism is becoming institutionalized in everyday governance.

In many respects, Korea’s domestic political situation today resembles the democratic crises associated with Viktor Orb?n’s Hungary or the Kaczy?ski government in Poland. A legislature exercising power on the basis of an overwhelming majority can be even more powerful?and more difficult to restrain?than a dictatorship centered on personal charisma, precisely because such deviation proceeds in the name of democracy and elections. In such a process, the traditional principles of separation of powers and the rule of law risk becoming hollow in substance. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to expect what Juan Linz described as “the self-restraint of power,” a necessary condition for democracy to function well. There are empirical cases suggesting that if more than 17 percent of voters in each region unite in organized resistance behind a credible opposition party, they can prevent the authoritarian consolidation of a ruling force. Whether today’s opposition, the People Power Party, is capable of demonstrating such leadership and recovering electorally, however, remains deeply uncertain. Without fundamental renewal and the presentation of a convincing vision, a conservative resurgence appears unlikely. That is the sober reality Korea faces today.

The views expressed herein may differ from those of the Hansun Foundation