South Korea Breaking into the Big Leagues

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The President has little choice but to listen. His political base, the Democratic Justice Party (D.J.P.), which once carried out Blue House orders on the floor of the National Assembly with arrogant impunity, is no longer able to command a majority. Government omnipotence is a memory. In July, for example, Roh submitted the name of his candidate for Supreme Court Chief Justice to the National Assembly for approval, a matter that would have been routine in the old days. The legislature, however, rejected his choice, forcing the President to nominate someone untainted by past association with the military.

The opposition too is learning that democracy cuts both ways. Opposition parties forced a bill through the Assembly in July giving the legislature wide investigative powers, including the right to order the arrest of reluctant witnesses. Roh vetoed the proposal. Consultations produced a compromise acceptable to both government and opposition. The event was quiet but historic, emblematic of the changes of the past year. "It is a good sign for democracy," says Kim Dae Jung. "We got together and compromised."

Chun's Fifth Republic, based on a constitution written to legitimate his seizure of power in 1980, began to founder in the summer of 1987, when the President, coming to the end of his seven-year term, attempted to pass his office to a loyal supporter and fellow general, Roh, without a direct election. On June 10, 1987, while Chun and Roh stood hand in hand in Seoul's Chamshil Gymnasium, accepting the applause of D.J.P. supporters at a sham convention to nominate the party's presidential candidate for the bogus election that would follow, antiregime students planned demonstrations that were to shake the country for the next two weeks.

Student demonstrations are an integral part of the political fabric of South Korea. But unlike most protests, fought under well-established rules of engagement at the gates of universities, the June 1987 demonstrations surged off the campuses, into the city streets. More important, they enlisted the support of middle-class citizens, whose forbearance with democracy delayed had been pushed to the limit under Chun.

Widespread public support for the students as they bravely stood their ground against pepper-gas-firing riot police transformed Roh the Chun Puppet into Roh the Democrat. On June 29 Roh invited a television crew to remain behind after he had addressed a routine meeting of the D.J.P. To the amazement of those present, Roh announced that he would resign from all his party positions unless the Chun government agreed to eight democratic reforms, including direct presidential elections, freedom of the press and pardons for political prisoners. The June 29 Declaration, as it is now known, stunned his party and disrupted its strategy to hold on to power.

Kim Dae Jung at first refused to believe the new political landscape was genuine, but he underestimated Roh's determination. A free and direct presidential election was held in December. Then, however, it was the opposition that lacked determination: rather than settle on a single candidate, who would probably have defeated Roh, the opposition split and ran two candidates, Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam. After a tumultuous campaign, Roh polled 36.6% of the vote, far from a majority but enough to best both Kim Young Sam, who received 28%, and Kim Dae Jung, with 27%.