Park got dictatorial powers with Yushin Constitution in 1972

The National Conference for Unification, the electoral college of the time, opens its first meeting to choose the only candidate, Park Chung-hee, as president under the Yushin Constitution on Dec. 23, 1972. The right photo shows Park making a speech before being elected without opposition. The Yushin Constitution gave Park dictatorial powers with no limits on reelection. / Korea Times files

By Michael Breen

Towards the end of his second term as president, Park Chung-hee, as with South

Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee, came to believe that the country couldn’t live with out him. His Democratic Republic Party, which dominated the parliament, pushed through a constitutional change to allow him to run for a third term.

But in the subsequent election, in 1971, Park faced an opponent named Kim Dae-jung, an inspiring orator who had been an unexpected compromise candidate between opposition factions. Elections in those days were not as clean as they are today, but even with all the funding and resources of the state at his disposal, Park only narrowly won.

In the New Year, Park approved the first-ever talks with North Korea. The two sides signed a historic agreement. But far from signaling the beginning of reconciliation, reports from his Korean CIA chief who visited Pyongyang made Park nervous. The appearance of unity behind the personality cult of Kim Il-sung gave an impression of strength.

Despite their close alliance with the American government and his characterization of South Korea’s own system as democratic, protest struck two worrying chords for Park and his people. One was that, as military officers, it seemed impertinent and unacceptable.

The second was that it resonated with an ancient idea that unrest, like natural disasters and bad harvests, signaled that heaven considered the leadership to lack morality and was shifting its endorsement.

The result was that, far from seeing strength in the expression of freedom, Park thought that dissent was weakening the state.

As a result, shortly after being sworn in, Park declared a state of emergency “based on the dangerous realities of the international situation.” In October 1972, he dissolved the National Assembly and suspended the Constitution. A new one was approved in November 1972 in a referendum that was almost certainly rigged.

This new national rulebook was named “yushin” which means “restoration,” although it was never clear what was being restored apart from Park’s own peace of mind.

The Yushin Constitution gave Park dictatorial powers. There were no limits on reelection. The president was also given the right to appoint a large portion of the National Assembly which ensured a permanent majority for the ruling party.

In a clever move, presidential elections were now to be via a US-style electoral college. It was called the National Conference for Unification (NCU), a misleading title that underscored the justification for the bold anti-democratic move that Park had made. It was, in his mind, necessary to protect the country against North Korea. (“Unification” in those days meant the removal or defeat of North Korea). In this new system, voters elected people to the electoral college which then chose the president. The conditions for candidacy, however, were so strict that there was only one candidate. Park was elected without opposition in 1972 and 1978.

The NCU opened its inaugural session on December 23, 1972 and elected Park as the President. He was sworn in four days later.

On Feb. 27, 1973, there was a general election to elect 146 representatives to the 219-seat National Assembly. The ruling party won 73 seats, with the main opposition New Democratic Party winning 52 seats and the minor opposition Democratic Unification Party getting two. Independents won 19 seats. The NCU then formally elected people to fill the remaining 73 seats who were selected by Park.

Another feature of the Yushin Constitution was that it allowed the president to take extraordinary measures in time of “national crisis.” Thus on January 8, 1974, Park issued Presidential Emergency Decree No. 1, which outlawed all activities or statements opposing the Yushin Constitution itself, as well as any press reports on those activities.

Emergency Decree No. 2 allowed the authorities to take all violators of Decree No. 1 into custody without arrest warrants and give them prison sentences of up to 15 years.

That year, Park brought out several more: Presidential Emergency Decree No. 3, also in January, drastically cut or exempted taxes for low-income earners. In April, decree No. 4 banned a group called the National Federation of Democratic Youths and Students which claimed was plotting the overthrow of the government. For good measure, it also ordered schools where students were engaged in such anti-state activities to be closed.

And so it went. The rule of the father of the Korean miracle degenerated into unjustified, paranoid repression.

The Yushin Constitution remained in place after Park’s assassinated in October 1979. His successor, Chun Doo-hwan was first elected by the electoral college and then introduced a new constitution which limited the presidency to a single seven-year term