|
South Korea Events in 1988
President-elect Roh Tae Woo outlined his 1988 political
goals--both old and new--in a New Year's interview. Some of Roh's
comments echoed the authoritarian language of President Chun's
1987 New Year's speech, which had typically called for "grand
national harmony" in which transcendent political leadership
would see the country through, if only the people would "rid
themselves of all vestiges of the old habit of confrontation and
strife." Roh made ample reference to traditional themes, speaking
of "suprapartisan operation of national affairs," "rooting out
corruption," and a mixture of persuasion and "stern measures," if
necessary, to bring leftist elements back into the fold. Roh also
seemed to promise genuine innovations: to eliminate authoritarian
practices, to investigate and punish people guilty of past
financial scandals, to protect the press from harassment by law
enforcement authorities, to reorganize intelligence agencies, to
demilitarize politics, and to resolve the 1980 Kwangju incident
by restoring honor to the victims and providing remuneration to
the bereaved.
Other leaders and other political forces also had their own
agendas for the new year. Under the heading of "Liquidating the
Legacy of the Fifth Republic," the opposition parties of Kim Dae
Jung and Kim Young Sam sought to investigate corruption in the
Fifth Republic, to reexamine the Kwangju incident, and demanded
the release of all political detainees and the reform of numerous
laws that had been used to control nonviolent political activity
and free expression. Like Roh, Kim Dae Jung's ability to
compromise was limited to a degree by his own desire not to lose
influence with an offstage constituency, in this case the
dissident community and other elements to his left. Kim Chong-
p'il's presidential campaign had also made use of these themes in
its attacks on the government party's candidate, Roh Tae Woo. Of
even greater importance, however, was restoration of the
reputations and professional careers of numerous individuals from
the Park Chung Hee era who, like Kim himself, had been purged in
1980 during Chun Doo Hwan's takeover. These individuals included
more than 8,800 civil servants and officers of state corporations
as well as several dozen senior military officers (from the army
chief of staff down), who had lost both ranks and pensions.
Successful resolution of these issues greatly increased Kim's
ability to work with the government party.
Other groups in society had their own expectations. Members
of labor unions at many of South Korea's large corporations,
fresh from a major campaign of strikes in late 1987, hoped for
the right to elect their own leaders and organize outside the
framework of the government-sponsored Federation of Korean Trade
Unions
(see Interest Groups
, this ch.). Some dissident
organizations hoped that the forthcoming 1988 Seoul Olympics
could be held jointly in P'yongyang and Seoul
(see Foreign Policy
, this ch.). Leftist students also sought opportunities to
meet with North Korean students. Some activist students hoped to
establish firmer contacts with farmers and the growing labor
movement, while at the violence-prone fringe of the radical
student movement others planned to continue to dramatize their
grievances through arson attacks against United States and South
Korean government facilities
(see Political Extremism and Political Violence
, this ch.). Still other dissidents planned to
continue demonstrating against the Roh government out of
conviction that it was a simple continuation of the previous
militarized regimes.
After his inauguration in February 1988, Roh took steps to
honor some of his campaign promises, appointing a woman to his
cabinet and approving the rehabilitation of thirty-one generals
dismissed in Chun's coups of 1979 and 1980. Another commitment,
to appoint members of the opposition parties to cabinet posts,
was not met when the two major parties failed to propose names
for consideration. Four of the new cabinet appointees, however,
were from the Cholla provinces.
Negotiations among the major political parties promptly began
over amending the National Assembly Election Law, one of the
major political issues left unresolved in the 1987 Constitution.
At stake were two variables: the size of the electoral districts
and the degree of proportionality. Each party took a position
that it believed would be to its advantage. Initially, the
government party and Kim Chong-p'il's NDRP favored different
mixtures of large and small districts. Kim Young Sam's party was
divided between its rural members, who also favored multiple-
member districts, and the leadership, which argued for single-
member districts. Kim Dae Jung's party, which in the presidential
election had swept all but two districts in Seoul, hoped to use
its heavily concentrated constituency in the Cholla provinces to
become the largest opposition party with a single-member district
system.
The ruling party eventually shifted to a single-member
district formula close to that proposed by the PPD, but finally
withdrew from the negotiations, claiming that the other parties
could not come to agreement in time. In a manner reminiscent of
the tactics of the Park Chung Hee era, the ruling party took
advantage of its legislative majority to unilaterally pass its
own draft amendment in a one-minute session held at 2 a.m. on
March 8, 1988. The newly amended law reinstated single-member
electoral districts, last used in the general election of 1970.
It also diluted the element of proportionality somewhat by
reducing the number of at-large seats to 75, or about one-fourth
of the total of 299, and by more evenly distributing them among
the participating parties. The opposition parties strongly
protested (Kim Dae Jung's party less vigorously than the others)
and then started to prepare their campaigns.
According to most observers, the results of the general
election of April 26, 1988, set the stage for a new political
drama. For the first time in South Korean history, the government
party lost its working majority in the legislature. The
government party had hoped to emerge victorious, as the two
largest opposition parties again split the antigovernment vote.
With 34 percent of the popular vote, however, the DJP held only
125 seats (87 district seats and the remainder at-large), well
under the 150 needed for a majority. Kim Chong-p'il's party, the
NDRP, ended up with a total of thirty-five seats, enabling it to
form its own bargaining group in the National Assembly. Kim Young
Sam's RDP gained a small number of seats, but lost in overall
ranking in the larger body. Kim Dae Jung's PPD took the senior
opposition party position with more than 19 percent of the vote
and 23 percent of the total number of seats (see
table 12,
Appendix).
There were several reasons for the upset. The government
party might have made a stronger showing had not Roh, intent upon
consolidating his control of a party that still contained many
holdovers from the Chun period, replaced one-third of incumbent
legislators with political newcomers. Because the new candidates
were not able quickly to build up the personal networks necessary
for success at the district level, the ruling party in effect
gave up one of its strongest campaign assets on the eve of the
election. Other factors included the ruling party's lack of a
following among younger and better-educated voters and its
failure to distance itself sufficiently from the Chun government
(the former president's brother was arrested on corruption
charges one month before the election). Increasing regionalism
also played a role, especially in the Cholla provinces, where the
government party candidates failed to win a single district seat.
The impact of the new balance of political forces in the
National Assembly, characterized by the press as yoso
yadae (small ruling power, large opposition power), quickly
became evident. Even before the thirteenth National Assembly
convened in late May 1988, the floor leaders of the government
and opposition parties met to agree upon procedures and to
discuss the release of political prisoners. These four-way talks
became common during the next two years, especially for routine
business matters. Four-way talks also were used to negotiate in
advance such political issues as the distribution of committee
chairmanships (nine for opposition parties, seven for the
government party) and the National Assembly's investigation of
dozens of cases of corruption or other irregularities committed
under the preceding Fifth Republic.
The judiciary also moved toward greater political
independence in 1988. In June one-third of the nation's judges
demanded that the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Kim Yong-
ch'ol, resign as a measure to restore public trust in the
politicized court system. Two weeks after the chief justice
resigned in disgrace, the two major opposition parties abstained
from the National Assembly vote to confirm Roh's first choice for
the vacancy, thereby causing the nomination to fail. This action
resulted in the nomination of Yi Il-kyu, a more independent-
minded figure known for not bending to political pressure. A
Supreme Court justice during the Chun presidency--until his
appointment was not renewed in 1986--Yi had won wide public
respect for overturning lower court rulings in political cases.
Yi's appointment as chief justice led to National Assembly
approval of thirteen new Supreme Court justices and a major
reshuffle of the judiciary in July that affected some thirty-five
senior District Court and High Court judges. At a meeting of
chiefs of all court levels in December 1988 when the Supreme
Court was drafting a revision to the Court Organization Law that
would give the judiciary full control over its own budgets, Chief
Justice Yi Il-kyu called on the judiciary to "take a hard look at
ourselves for the situation in which the public felt distrust for
the judiciary" and pledged that he would "never tolerate any
outside influence in court proceedings."
Under Yi's leadership, the South Korean judiciary became more
independent. This trend continued into 1989, as courts overturned
the parliamentary election victories of two government party
candidates on charges of illegal campaigning and sentenced
numerous former officials and relatives of former President Chon
Doo Hwan to prison terms on corruption and power-abuse charges.
In another unprecedented action in late 1989, a judge acting on
his own initiative granted bail to a student activist charged
with violating the National Security Act.
The Seoul Olympics, scheduled to begin in September 1988,
contributed to a tacit political truce where the more contentious
and difficult political questions, such as the revisions of "bad
laws" sought by the two larger opposition parties, were
concerned. The primary focus of partisan politics during 1988 was
the settling of old accounts concerning the Fifth Republic. These
issues in turn were divided into two categories: questions
related to Chun's seizure of power in late 1979 and early 1980,
including the Kwangju incident, and questions concerning
corruption and other irregularities during the period of Chun's
rule through 1987. In July 1988, following the president's veto
of two bills that would have expanded the legislature's
inspection powers--for example, enabling the National Assembly to
order judicial warrants forcing subpoenaed witnesses, such as
former President Chun, to testify--the government party agreed
with the three major opposition parties to hold hearings into
numerous irregularities of the Fifth Republic. Other special
committees established in July were charged with studying
reunification policy, democratization issues, problems of
regionalism in politics, the conduct of the Seoul Olympics, and
irregularities in the recent presidential and general elections.
In twenty meetings held between late September and mid-
December 1988, the committee investigating corruption under the
Chun government interviewed dozens of witnesses, many of them
high-level civilian and military officers. The televised hearings
dazzled the public with revelations concerning the suppression of
media independence in 1980, the extortion of political funds from
large corporations, and improprieties connected with the Ilhae
Institute, a charitable foundation established by Chun Doo Hwan
(see
The Media, this ch.).
The hearings had several effects. Pressures against the
former president grew as the hearings continued; in late November
1988, Chun appeared on television to apologize to the nation,
taking responsibility for what he termed the "tragic
consequences" in Kwangju in 1980. He also stated that he would
surrender US$24 million in cash and property and announced that
he would seek seclusion in a Buddhist monastery in repentance.
The hearings led to subsequent criminal prosecutions of numerous
members of Chun's family, as well as former high officials,
including the former director of the Agency for National Security
Planning, Chang Se-tong. The hearings also gave many South
Koreans their first opportunity to see their legislators in
action and set a precedent for future broadcasts of National
Assembly business.
The drama of the hearings drew attention away from the more
prosaic business of the National Assembly, which during the year
passed dozens of laws and decided on a 1989 budget. Despite often
strong disagreements among parties, these results underscored the
role of four-way talks in the process of political compromise,
previously a rare commodity in South Korean politics. The
resulting de facto coalition foreshadowed the merger of three of
the four parties in early 1990.
People dissatisfied with Roh's first year as president
overlooked significant political factors, including the
restraining impact of world attention prior to the 1988 Seoul
Olympics on Roh's conduct. Roh did make effective moves to
consolidate his political position during the year, including a
series of appointments and reshuffles within the Democratic
Justice Party, the cabinet, and the senior ranks of the military.
Changed political circumstances in 1989 made it possible for Roh
to move more decisively to deal with opponents inside and outside
the National Assembly.
Data as of June 1990
|
