Park’s First and Second Term
Despite his public pledge to turn over the power to a civilian government, Park, after retirement from the army, ran in the presidential election on Oct. 5, 1963 and won. It was announced that Park had defeated former President Yun Po-son who ran on the ticket of the Minjung Party, by a slim margin of 150,000 votes. The opposition civilian politicians failed to present a unified front in the election, several splinter parties fielding their own presidential candidates.
The transition from military to civilian rule was completed with the general elections held on Nov. 26, 1963 for the sixth National Assembly. In the parliamentary elections, it was proclaimed, the Democratic Republican Party, composed mainly of soldier-turned politicians and their followers, scored victory over the badly split opposition forces.
In the subsequent presidential election held on May 3, 1967, President Park Chung-hee was reelected to a second consecutive term with 51.4 percent of the total valid votes over his chief opponent Yun Po-son. In the parliamentary elections on June 8, 1967, Park’s Democratic Republican Party won 130 seats, 13 seats more than the two-thirds majority required for constitutional revision. The major opposition New Democratic Party, which had been formed just prior to the general elections through the merger of two parties, Minjung and Shinmin, got only 44 seats.
Constitutional Amendment
Kim Jong-pil, the founder-chairman of the ruling Democratic Republican Party, by announcing all of a sudden that he was retiring from politics in the summer of 1968, laid bare the intraparty feud which had obviously been seething for sometime within the ruling party. The internal bick-erings within the ruling hierarchy worsened in early 1969 when the so-called non-mainstream faction of the ruling Democratic Republican Party started the move to rewrite the basic law to scrap the two-term limit on presidency. The opposition politicians, with the backing of public opinion, immediately started a campaign to bar another constitutional amendment initiated for the sole purpose of prolonging the presidential tenure of an individual.
President Park’s party tabled a constitutional amendment bill on Sept. 14, 1969 which would enable the incumbent President to bid for his third straight term. The constitutional amendment bill was rammed through the legislature in a special session held at a National Assembly annex building in the absence of opposition lawmakers.
The constitutional amendment proposal was put to a national referendum on Oct. 17. The official announcement said 65.1 percent of the voters throughout the country cast aye votes.
Park’s Third Term
In the wake of the railroading of the constitutional amend-ment, the legislative function came to a virtual standstill. The opposition New Democratic Party adamantly refused to attend the National Assembly sessions, demanding that ruling Democratic Republican Party accept its five-point preconditions, including a revision of election laws to hold elections for the President and National Assembly at the same time and implementation of local autonomy.
Negotiations dragged on, both sides re-fusing to give in. However, politicians changed the focus of their attention elsewhere when the next parliamentary election approached early in 1970. And yet, the nation’s political world was tense throughout 1970. The National Assembly bogged down in partisan bickerings over every major issue.
The political strife took yet another vociferous turn in the closing months of 1970 when the opposition New Democratic Party named Kim Dae-jung, a new generation politician, as its standardbearer for the oncoming presidential election. Following his nomination, the opposition leader started to stump the nation attacking President Park and his government for their alleged corruption and strong-arm tactics.
President Park, however, was reelected on April 27, 1971 for his third consecutive four-year term, defeating Kim Dae-jung. Nevertheless, the ruling Democratic Republican Party suffered a major setback in the general elections on May 25 for the 204-seat new National Assembly. The governing party won 113 seats, 23 seats short of the two-thirds majority, whereas the opposition New Democratic Party had 89 seats, 20 seats more than 69 seats required to block any future attempt to rewrite the basic law.
Proclamation of State of National Emergency
President Park proclaimed a state of national emergency throughout the country on Dec. 6, 1971, asking the people, among other things, to be prepared to shoulder increased burdens to tide over the crucial situation surrounding the nation. The emergency measure was aimed at awakening the people to the international situation which endangered the security and vital interests of the nation.
The declaration contained a six-point guideline which Park said should govern the administration’s policies and the daily life of the people in the face of the crucial situation surrounding the country. The Dec. 6 declaration was followed up by a series of concrete measures designed to streamline and strengthen the military preparedness of the nation, which included the passage of Special Measure Law on National Defense. The law empowers the President to exercise, if necessary, the vast powers which he would otherwise be able to invoke only under martial law.
In the meantime, the ruling Democratic Republican Party drafted a special bill on national security to support President Park’s efforts to weather through the national emergency. The opposition New Democratic Party immediately came out against the special bill, and its lawmakers resorted to physical resistance on the Assembly floor to block its passage.
The ruling Democratic Republican Party legislators, however, went ahead and pas-sed the bill in a predawn Assembly session on Dec. 27 which was convened in secrecy without the knowledge of the opposition lawmakers. Two months earlier the government had invoked the Garrison Act in the Seoul area to put down anti-government student demonstrations protesting the military training program for colleges.
July 4 Joint Communique On July 4, 1972, South and North Korea simultaneously announced a joint communique pledging mutual collaboration to seek peaceful reunification, stunning the nation. The historic joint communique called for renouncing the use of force in pursuit of reunification. The agreement was reached after Lee Hu-rak, director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, and Pak Song-chol, North Korean Vice Premier, exchanged secret visits to each other’s capital. But the agreement became a dead letter as the Red Cross talks between the two sides came to a deadlock in 1973.
Red Cross Talks The Red Cross talks between South and North Korea started at the initiative of the Korean National Red Cross in 1971 with the specific aim of helping reunite an estimated 10 million divided family members living in separation. Representatives from both sides held a total of four full-fledged meetings alternately in Seoul and Pyongyang in 1972. In 1973, however, they held only three rounds of full-dress meetings as the talks deadlocked because of North Korea’s politically motivated demands which obviously had been raised to wreck the talks from the beginning.
The divergence of view between the two sides over the basic approach toward the Red Cross parley led the humanitarian conference to a stand-still. The impasse was further aggravated in August of 1973 when North Korea demanded replacement of chief South Korea negotiator Lee Hu-rak, accusing him of masterminding the abduction of Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung from Tokyo to Seoul in August 1973.
Proclamation of Martial Law On Oct. 17, 1972, President Park proclaimed martial law which was meant to partially suspending the Constitution and dissolving the National Assembly, while banning political activities. The emergency measure was necessary to effect institutional reforms in the nation’s political system to cope with the changing international situation and to carry on with South-North dialogue just initiated with Communist North Korea.
Ten days later Park bared another constitutional revision calling for creation of the National Conference for Unification (NCU) whose function it was to pick the President, doing away with a nationwide poll. The proposed Constitution also provided for extension of the tenure for both the President and the National Assembly from the current four to six years. Also the National Assembly would be composed of a total of 219 members, of which one-third would be picked by the President, leaving the remaining two-thirds to be elected through a popular vote