Columns
Suggestions that an incumbent could benefit from constitutional changes risk reviving the abuses that democracy movements sought to prevent.
Lee Ha-kyung
The author is a senior columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo.
Since Korea adopted its Constitution in 1948, it has been amended nine times. Six amendments were initiated by rulers who believed that the country could not do without them and sought to extend their rule. Their anachronistic dreams of permanence brought turmoil and destroyed democracy.
Founding President Syngman Rhee engineered the first amendment in 1952, during the 1950-53 Korean War, to secure re-election. It replaced indirect election by the National Assembly with direct popular election. Rhee declared martial law, detained opposition lawmakers and forced the amendment through for one man’s ambition.
Two years later, he secured another amendment removing the presidential term limit through the notorious “rounding-off” interpretation of the vote count. The path to permanent rule opened, but fury erupted in the revolution of April 19, 1960, and drove the “founding father” from power.
Park Chung Hee, who seized power by force, rammed through a 1969 amendment that allowed him a third term. Three years later, he crushed democracy with the Yushin Constitution and turned himself into a de facto “emperor” with virtually unchecked power. The gunshots at Gungjeong-dong on Oct. 26, 1979, that killed the corrupted “hero of industrialization” were a future already foretold.
Such greed for indefinite power humiliated the sovereign people. That is why the ninth amendment, born of the June Democratic Struggle of 1987, installed a brake against prolonged dictatorship. Article 128, Paragraph 2 stipulates that an amendment extending a president’s term or changing re-election rules “shall not be effective for the president in office at the time the proposal for such amendment is made.” It prevents a referee from changing the rules midgame and becoming a player.
The Democratic Party’s (DP) historic achievement was helping end a prolonged dictatorship and win democratization. But a National Assembly speaker from the DP has now opened the door to extended rule.
Speaker Cho Jeong-sik said whether an incumbent could benefit from a re-election amendment was “a matter of opinion and the people’s choice as sovereign.” He reportedly received questions and rehearsed before his first press conference on July 28 after taking office. It was a provocation against democracy and the Constitution. The prevailing view is that Cho, formerly the president’s special adviser, was flattering him in repayment for a favor.
Minister of Government Legislation Cho Won-chul said on Oct. 24, 2025, that applying a four-year, two-term presidency to the incumbent was “ultimately for the people to decide.” Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said on Dec. 20, 2025, that people say “five years is too short,” and some “wish he could serve longer.” But a calculated statement from the legislative chief spearheading constitutional revision is different.
The liberal camp is recoiling. Former lawmaker Yoo In-tae, once sentenced to death for opposing Park’s dictatorship, said, “It was wrong. […] I’m about to start swearing again.”
Han In-sup, a professor emeritus at Seoul National University School of Law, said that the clause embodies lessons from constitutional destruction and was won by the sovereign people in 1987 through “blood, sweat and tears.” It reduced fears of prolonged rule, enabled transfers of power and contributed to constitutional democracy. Calling Cho’s argument “the voice of a sycophant,” Han warned that another such statement would bring people to Yeouido, where the National Assembly is, to demand the speaker’s removal.
President Lee Jae Myung has said that he will carry the “great milestone that was Kim Dae-jung” in his heart. During his 1971 presidential campaign, Kim Dae-jung warned against Park’s third term, which would lead to permanent dictatorship. His prediction came true. Park launched the Yushin self-coup, and the Korean Central Intelligence Agency abducted Kim Dae-jung and nearly killed him at sea. Kim Dae-jung chose resistance against dictatorship to revive democracy.
If a president who professes respect for Kim Dae-jung were to mutilate the Constitution to seek re-election, the world would ridicule Korea.
Some political gossip states that because dropping the indictments underlying the five suspended trials in eight cases involving Lee has become difficult, a re-election amendment is being considered. Hopefully that is untrue. It may be an attempt to sow distrust and distract a president wrestling with difficult state affairs.
Lee, who embraces Kim Dae-jung’s democracy, should not fall into the traps of Rhee and Park.
To silence such rumors, he cannot merely say that a re-election amendment is impossible because the opposition opposes it. Lee must state unequivocally, “I have not the slightest intention of seeking re-election.”
The sooner, the better.
The dispute over a justice nomination raises fresh concerns about presidential pressure on Korea’s judiciary.
The U.S. president’s overtures to North Korea’s leader risk sidelining Seoul and strengthening Pyongyang’s nuclear leverage.
Adding written responses to Korea’s college entrance exam could deepen tutoring inequality unless admissions realities are addressed.
The opposition party accused the Lee Jae Myung government of weakening security on the peninsula after hastily scaled-back U.S.-South Korea drills and withering North Korean criticism.
Leave a Reply