As I mentioned in the last update to my previous post, the media — Joongang and Chosun at the fore — have been harping on how the current system of “imperial presidency” leads inexorably to abuses of power and a paralyzing polarization of left and right. Readers are told that only in a new, more assembly-centric system (the stock euphemism) can the main parties finally begin cooperating for the good of the country.
South Korea has been here before. For the benefit of those who don’t want to read through my earlier posts on this topic (here and here), allow me to repeat myself a bit: The political elite has long called for a change of the current presidential system to a semi-parliamentary one (in Korean: naegakje). Most executive power would then reside in a prime minister chosen by the National Assembly, while a president elected by direct popular vote would handle foreign policy and exercise a symbolic unifying function.
The American observer may well wonder what’s so “imperial” about the current set-up. A South Korean president has some powers which POTUS lacks, but he/she cuts a more pathetic figure when the opposition controls the legislature. Park Geun-hye was thrown out of power with remarkable ease and speed, on the basis of lurid media allegations that turned out to be groundless. (New charges had to be cooked up — by Yoon Seok-yeol among others — to get her behind bars.)
A few days ago Yu Seong-min made some good points in the Hankyung under the title, “Is it really an imperial presidency?”
If you compare presidential power to that of the National Assembly, it is doubtful that the word “imperial” can be applied. South Korean lawmakers are “armored” with immunity from arrest and some other of the world’s most generous legal immunities… and are guaranteed a straight four-year term without any checks. That’s twice as long as the U.S. House of Representatives…. The National Assembly has the power to audit the government… With a majority of seats, it can impeach at will ministers, the chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, the auditor general, and the chief prosecutor.
Nor do the routinely asserted advantages of parliamentary or semi-parliamentary systems bear up under scrutiny. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was more “imperial” than any of South Korea’s recent presidents have been; rash and arbitrary decision-making by Chancellor Angela Merkel had much more destructive consequences for her country (her continent, for that matter) than Yoon’s one-night stand with martial law had for his; Canada seems to be in an even worse leadership crisis (19% support for Trudeau) than South Korea; and no evidence suggests that there is less polarization under such systems than in presidential ones. Not that there’s anything wrong with the head-on clash of political values anyway. It can’t possibly be worse for the working classes than the uniparties now in power in Germany and America. Is it a coincidence that ever-stagnant, ever-shrinking Busan is the South Korean city where left and right get along best?
More to the point: How does the South Korean public feel about this issue? Those old or educated enough to recall the disastrous experiment with a semi-parliamentary system in 1960-1961 (which ended in a military coup welcomed by right and left) aren’t the only ones who suspect the real motives behind the push for a naegakje. It’s obvious that such a change would greatly widen the trough for all lawmakers, and increase opportunities for the more prominent ones to play prime minister or minister for several months. Opinion polls have shown consistent if slightly weakening opposition to the restoration of it.
Not surprisingly, even prominent naegakje supporters like Kim Dae Jung have abandoned the cause upon becoming president themselves. The impeachment of Park Geun-hye, though prepared for by the pro-naegakje media (especially the broadcaster JTBC) and enabled by the pro-naegakje parliamentary right, ended up putting a man in power who quickly abandoned his support for constitutional revision. This tradition continued under Yoon, despite his having been brought to power by the same people who had led the drive against Park.
So why should constitutional revision be any more likely next year? Because Lee Jae-myung’s ongoing failure to generate a judge-intimidating groundswell of support increases the possibility that he will be imprisoned within the next few months, which would eliminate the only remaining politician on the scene with any sort of mandate to become an old-school, powerful president. (Roughly 37% approval is not much of a mandate, but remember that Moon came to power in 2017 with only 41% of the vote.) His imprisonment would also put conservatives, who are more hostile to him than to his party as a whole, in a better mood to support bipartisan cooperation on constitutional revision. As for Yoon, either he’s impeached or he returns to power, with years left in his term, as an internationally disgraced lame duck. The latter scenario might well do more than the former to generate public support for a semi-parliamentary system.
