SOUTH KOREA: President for Life

Autocratic old Syngman Rhee wants to be President of South Korea for the rest of his life, even though it is unconstitutional. His solution: change the constitution. Last year he proposed amending the constitution so that the two-term limit would not apply to "the first President of the Republic"—himself. To pass the amendment, he needed more than a two-thirds majority, or better than 135 votes out of the 203-man Assembly. But he had only 100 votes. His leaders set to work cultivating opposition Assemblymen with so many favors, Bank of Korea loans and automobiles, that the legislature became known as the "Sedan Assembly." By late summer Rhee's Liberal Party numbered 137, and Rhee looked like a winner.

He ordered a vote on a bill amending the constitution in several places. But Rhee's largesse had convinced several balky Assemblymen that in dalliance there was further reward. When the secret vote was counted, Vice Chairman of the Assembly Choi Soon Joo regretfully announced that the proposal had received only 135 votes, just two-thirds of one ballot less than required, "therefore the amendments are defeated."

Stunned and angry, Rhee sent for his propaganda chief, who hastily announced: "The government feeling is that the fraction must be disregarded and the amendments have therefore been approved." At the next Assembly session, Choi Soon Joo dutifully echoed: "My Saturday announcement was wrong. Today I want to announce that the bill has passed legally." Sixty anti-Rhee assemblymen stormed out of the chamber, crying that the President "has usurped the legislative power."

This was just what the President wanted. By a quick show of hands his forces repealed the laws of arithmetic as well as those of Korea, voted that 135 of 203 is indeed two-thirds, and changed the previous minutes to show that the rejected amendments had passed. That night Rhee signed the bill into law, thus becoming eligible for re-election in mid-1956, when he will be 81.