3.5. The process of democratization in Korea and Taiwan
3.5.2. Korea’s case
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3.5.2.Korea’s case
The situation in Korea was different. Following the Revolution on April 19, 1960, the multiparty system yielded its fruit and Democratic Party formed the government. However, it was unfortunate for the Democratic Party that it failed and overthrown. Park Chung Hee overthrew the government by means of putting the Coup on May 16th into practice. Democratic Party failed, because they were not able enough to rule the state efficiently and to come up with satisfactory solutions for the social problems. As a result, Park Chung Hee took over the rule with military coup and another authoritarian regime started, which did not make the Korean society happy(Cho 2003).
Under this authoritarian regime, protests against the system began and they were widely supported by the public, including the students, scholars and judges.
While the society was protesting the rule and demanding democratization, on the one hand, Park Chung Hee aimed at introducing Yushin system.
The Yushin system strengthened the presidential authority to a generalissimo level. In order to prevent pro-democracy activities, several decrees were adopted. This system turned out to be a hindrance to democratization movements, because it was repressive and strict. Moreover, giving all powers in a state to the President only has nothing to do with democracy, but dictatorship; therefore, it was dictatorial system.
However, the grassroots movements continued in this period and resistance to Yushin system became widespread. The assassination of Park Chung Hee was the turning point in this period, as it ended with the death of the authoritarian leader.
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After Kim Chae-gyu, the director of the KCIA, assassinated Park Chung-hee on October 26, 1979, Generals Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo seized power in a coup of December 12th, ,1979. At year and established the 5th Republic. Within a few months they had suppressed the protests in Kwangju with deadly violence (Oberdorfer 1997).
After the assassination of Park Chung-hee, there was a convenient environment for democratization movements. However, within the scope of the new constitution, Chun Hoo-hwan came to power and the military forces organized the political party system according to their understanding. Likewise, Chun Doo-hwan resorted to oppression and forces to control the movements and social uprisings.
Intolerant to authoritarian regimes, the Koreans continued their democratization activities. In this period, more radical groups protested against the government and pushed for democracy. In return, the government took strict measures to suppress the movements, such that the suppression was so fierce that the ruling government violated fundamental human rights.
The June Democratic Uprising of 1987 was a turning point in the South Korean history, as the whole society cooperated against the authoritarianism. It became a massive uprising, supported widely by the public.
In plain words, the June Democratic Uprising was a nation-wide uprising and the main goal was to make the authorities to give green light to democratization. For this very reason, it is right to call this national-wide cooperation as the key to success. In return, the ruling authorities came up with the June 29th Declaration. This declaration was introduced in order to finds a solution to the social problems. This declaration
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helped to take firm steps towards democratization. During this period, the Chun regime could not use the military power to take the uprisings under control. On the grounds that the protests were so strong and widely-supported that the ruling regime did not think that they could quell the continuance of the riots. The grassroots movements for democratization yielded fruitful results in paving the way for a change;
however, not a democratic government was formed in the end.
The violation of human rights posed an obstacle on the way to democratization, because the government intimidated the activitists and protestors so as to not to give rise to a big social unrest. Under these circumstances, in order to overthrow the authoritarianism and bring democratization, people had no choice except for protesting, which finally led to June Democratic Uprising in 1987.
Availing the opportunity thanks to June Democratic Uprising, the democratization movements led to transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The endeavors of people gave positive result and they played an important role in this critical process. The most important factor that contributed to this process is the coalition of various groups in the society. In other words, the movements did not remain as the movement of students only, or the scholars, rather, it was supported by huge crowds. Each class and group gave their support for the activities. Basically, the movements started by the activities at the beginning, but it became a massive uprising in the cores of time. As these efforts paved the way for democratization, it is a kind of transition by movement.
Following to this uprising, the Constitution was amended in the same year and the constitutional system began to operate properly. The civil society also began to regain its previous status, as it was repressed by the previous authoritarian regimes by
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force. Thanks to this democratization period, the civil society began to develop more and more. In the year 1988, popular elections became the only way of electing the governmental representatives at national, provincial and local levels.
The contemporary history of Korea covers alternating periods of democratic and autocratic rules: from the first to the sixth republics. The 1st republic was established by Syngman Rhee and de jure sovereignty passed to the new government. The 1st constitution of the country was promulgated by the first National Assembly. The 2nd republic was established after the new parliamentary elections were held in 1960.
With the second republic, the parliamentary cabinet system was adopted. However, with a military coup d’état by Park Chug-hee, the 2nd republic came to an end and the 3rd republic was established by Park. Under his authoritarian rule, martial law was declared. Further, he also announced plans to eliminate the popular election of the president. With the adoption of Yushin Constitution, the fourth republic began in 1972. Thanks to this constitution, Park gained effective control over the parliament.
Following the assassination of Park, social protests arose and the fifth republic was established by Chun Doo-hwan. Eventually, did to the June Democracy Movement, the republic came to an end the last republic came into existence with Roh Tae-woo.
In the National Assembly election of March 1981, the military's Democratic Justice Party (DJP) won 151 of the 276 seats (Im, 2004). In the February 12, 1985, National Assembly election, the DJP did much worse, winning only 35.3 percent of the vote and 87 of the 276 seats, while the opposition won 30 percent of the vote and the five largest cities in South Korea as well as 67 seats. At this time the two major opposition leaders, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, remained barred from political activity. On March 6, 1985, the government removed the ban on several
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opposition politicians, though Kim Dae-jung was still prohibited from political activity. Roh Tae-woo became party chairman.
From 1984, the number of student protests and their participants rose substantially over the previous years. In 1987 the number of student protesters increased to more than 930,000 (Oberdorfer, 1997). The protests were not limited to students and they occurred nationwide. In June 1987, 3,362 protests were held in South Korea, with one million participants in 37 cities.
While president Chun Doo-hwan refused to compromise with the opposition, his designated successor, party chairman Roh Tae-woo, gave his famous eight-point speech of June 29, 1987, which made many concessions to the demonstrators including constitutional amendments approved by government and opposition, direct presidential elections, revision of the Presidential Election Law, an amnesty for and restoration of the civil rights of Kim Dae-jung, the free in go fall political prisoners except those charged with treason or violence, a free press, freedom for political parties, local autonomy, self-governance by universities, and a campaign against crime and corruption. Roh Tae-woo implemented these promises and by late October, the Korean people approved the new constitution of the Sixth Republic. Although Roh Tae-woo was one of the generals who had carried out the coup of December 12, 1979, and was involved in the suppression of the Kwangju Uprising in May 1980, he seemed to have become much more democratic by mid-1987. In the presidential election of December 17, 1987, Roh Tae-woo won with only 37 percent of the vote against Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, who split 55 percent of the vote between them. In the National Assembly election of April 26, 1988, held four months after the presidential election, Roh's party obtained only 125 of the 299 seats, though in the
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March 24, 1992, National Assembly election, near the end of Roh's term as president, his party obtained 149 of the 299 seats.
In some ways Roh Tae-woo in Korea combines elements of both Chiang Ching-kuo and the early presidency of Lee Teng-hui. Chiang Ching-kuo, though he began the process of democratization with very significant liberalization, remained the clear and unchallengeable leader.
Roh Tae-woo, as a colleague of Chun Doo-hwan, was able to overrule the president, especially as the demonstrations in Korea became huge and the opening of the Seoul Olympics approached. Like Lee Teng-hui in Taiwan, Roh Tae-woo worked closely with the opposition. In fact, Roh's ruling Democratic Justice Party merged with Kim Young-sam's Reunification and Democracy Party in 1990 to form the Democratic Liberal Party.
After overcoming many obstacles, Kim Young-sam came to lead this new party and win the presidency on December 18, 1992.42 This ability to compromise partly accounts for the smooth and relatively peaceful transitions in both countries.
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