The president of the Republic of Korea serves as the chief executive of the government of the Republic of Korea and the commander-in-chief of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces.
The South Korean government constitutionally considers the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) to be its predecessor. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The KPG was established in 1919 as a government in exile in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation of Korea. It had nine different heads of state between September 1919 and August 1948.
The presidential term has been set at five years since 1988. It was previously set at four years from 1948 to 1972, six years from 1972 to 1981, and seven years from 1981 to 1988. Since 1981, the president has been barred from re-election. The president must be a South Korean citizen, at least 40 years old, who has lived in South Korea for 5 years.
The incumbent president is Yoon Suk Yeol, who assumed office on 10 May 2022. [7]
Political parties |
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Status |
No. | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Term of office | Political party | Election | ||
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Took office | Left office | Time in office | |||||
Presidents of the First Republic | |||||||
1 | Syngman Rhee 이승만 李承晩 (1875–1965) | 24 July 1948 | 26 April 1960 | 11 years, 277 days | NARRKI Liberal | 1st (1948) 2nd (1952) 3rd (1956) March 1960 | |
— | Ho Chong 허정 許政 (1896–1988) Acting | 27 April 1960 | 15 June 1960 | 50 days | Independent | — | |
Presidents of the Second Republic | |||||||
— | Kwak Sang-hoon 곽상훈 郭尙勳 (1896–1980) Acting | 16 June 1960 | 23 June 1960 | 7 days | Democratic | — | |
— | Ho Chong 허정 許政 (1896–1988) Acting | 23 June 1960 | 7 August 1960 | 46 days | Independent | — | |
— | Baek Nak-jun 백낙준 白樂濬 (1895–1985) Acting | 8 August 1960 | 12 August 1960 | 5 days | Independent | — | |
2 | Yun Po-sun 윤보선 尹潽善 (1897–1990) | 13 August 1960 | 24 March 1962 | 1 year, 224 days | Democratic New Democratic | 4th (August 1960) | |
— | General Park Chung Hee 박정희 朴正熙 (1917–1979) Chairman of the SCNR | 24 March 1962 | 16 December 1963 | 1 year, 268 days | Military | — | |
President of the Third Republic | |||||||
3 | Park Chung Hee 박정희 朴正熙 (1917–1979) | 17 December 1963 | 26 December 1972 | 9 years, 10 days | Democratic Republican | 5th (1963) 6th (1967) 7th (1971) | |
Presidents of the Fourth Republic | |||||||
(3) | Park Chung Hee 박정희 朴正熙 (1917–1979) | 27 December 1972 | 26 October 1979 [n 1] | 6 years, 304 days | Democratic Republican | 8th (1972) 9th (1978) | |
— | Choi Kyu-hah 최규하 崔圭夏 (1919–2006) | 26 October 1979 | 6 December 1979 | 42 days | Independent | — | |
4 | 6 December 1979 | 16 August 1980 [n 2] | 255 days | 10th (1979) | |||
— | Park Choong-hoon 박충훈 朴忠勳 (1919–2001) Acting | 16 August 1980 | 31 August 1980 | 15 days | Democratic Republican | — | |
5 | Chun Doo-hwan 전두환 全斗煥 (1931–2021) | 1 September 1980 | 24 February 1981 | 177 days | Military | 11th (1980) | |
President of the Fifth Republic | |||||||
(5) | Chun Doo-hwan 전두환 全斗煥 (1931–2021) | 25 February 1981 | 24 February 1988 | 7 years, 0 days | Democratic Justice | 12th (1981) | |
Presidents of the Sixth Republic | |||||||
6 | Roh Tae-woo 노태우 盧泰愚 (1932–2021) | 25 February 1988 | 24 February 1993 | 5 years, 0 days | Democratic Justice Democratic Liberal Independent | 13th (1987) | |
7 | Kim Young-sam 김영삼 金泳三 (1927–2015) | 25 February 1993 | 24 February 1998 | 5 years, 0 days | Democratic Liberal New Korea Independent | 14th (1992) | |
8 | Kim Dae-jung 김대중 金大中 (1924–2009) | 25 February 1998 | 24 February 2003 | 5 years, 0 days | National Congress Millennium Democratic Independent | 15th (1997) | |
9 | Roh Moo-hyun 노무현 盧武鉉 (1946–2009) | 25 February 2003 [n 3] | 24 February 2008 | 5 years, 0 days | Millennium Democratic Independent Uri Independent | 16th (2002) | |
10 | Lee Myung-bak 이명박 李明博 (born 1941) | 25 February 2008 | 24 February 2013 | 5 years, 0 days | Grand National Saenuri | 17th (2007) | |
11 | Park Geun-hye 박근혜 朴槿惠 (born 1952) | 25 February 2013 | 10 March 2017 [n 4] | 4 years, 14 days | Saenuri Liberty Korea | 18th (2012) | |
— | Hwang Kyo-ahn 황교안 黃敎安 (born 1957) Acting | 9 December 2016 | 9 May 2017 | 152 days | Independent | — | |
12 | Moon Jae-in 문재인 文在寅 (born 1953) | 10 May 2017 | 9 May 2022 | 5 years, 0 days | Democratic | 19th (2017) | |
13 | Yoon Suk Yeol 윤석열 尹錫悅 (born 1960) | 10 May 2022 | Incumbent | 2 years, 14 days | People Power | 20th (2022) |
Ideology | # | Time in office | Name(s) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | 9 | 21449 days [lower-alpha 1] | Choi Kyu-hah, Chun Doo-hwan, Kim Young-sam, Lee Myung-bak, Park Chung Hee, Park Geun-hye, Roh Tae-woo, Syngman Rhee, and Yoon Suk Yeol (incumbent) | |
Liberal | 4 | 6067 days | Kim Dae-jung, Moon Jae-in, Roh Moo-hyun, and Yun Po-sun | |
Timeline of South Korean governments |
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The history of South Korea begins with the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945. At that time, South Korea and North Korea were divided, despite being the same people and on the same peninsula. In 1950, the Korean War broke out. North Korea overran South Korea until US-led UN forces intervened. At the end of the war in 1953, the border between South and North remained largely similar. Tensions between the two sides continued. South Korea alternated between dictatorship and liberal democracy. It underwent substantial economic development.
The politics of South Korea take place in the framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the president is the head of state, and of a multi-party system. To ensure a separation of powers, the Republic of Korea Government is made up of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The government exercises executive power and legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises a Supreme Court, appellate courts, and a Constitutional Court.
The Republic of Korea Armed Forces, also known as the ROK Armed Forces, are the armed forces of South Korea. The ROK Armed Forces is one of the largest and most powerful standing armed forces in the world with a reported personnel strength of 3,600,000 in 2022.
The President of the Republic of Korea, also known as the President of South Korea (Korean: 대통령), is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of Korea. The president leads the State Council, and is the chief of the executive branch of the national government as well as the commander-in-chief of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces.
Syngman Rhee was a South Korean politician who served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. Rhee is also known by his art name Unam. Rhee was also the first and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea from 1919 to his impeachment in 1925 and from 1947 to 1948. As president of South Korea, Rhee's government was characterised by authoritarianism, limited economic development, and in the late 1950s growing political instability and public opposition.
The national flag of the Republic of Korea, also known as the Taegeukgi, has three parts: a white rectangular background, a red and blue taegeuk in its center, accompanied by four black trigrams, one in each corner. Flags similar to the current Taegeukgi were used as the national flag of Korea by the Joseon dynasty, the Korean Empire, as well as the Korean government-in-exile during Japanese rule. South Korea adopted the Taegeukgi for its national flag when it gained independence from Japan on 15 August 1945.
Korean nationalism can be viewed in two different contexts. One encompasses various movements throughout history to maintain a Korean cultural identity, history, and ethnicity. This ethnic nationalism was mainly forged in opposition to foreign incursion and rule. The second context encompasses how Korean nationalism changed after the partition in 1945. Today, the former tends to predominate.
The Korean Provisional Government (KPG), formally the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, was a Korean government in exile based in China during the Japanese occupation of Korea.
The National Emblem of the Republic of Korea consists of the taegeuk symbol present on the South Korean national flag surrounded by five stylized petals and a ribbon bearing the inscription of the official Korean name of the country, in Korean characters. The Taegeuk represents peace and harmony. The five petals all have meaning and are related to South Korea's national flower, the Hibiscus syriacus, or Rose of Sharon.
The Constitution of the Republic of Korea is the supreme law of South Korea. It was promulgated on July 17, 1948, and last revised on October 29, 1987.
Brian Reynolds Myers, usually cited as B. R. Myers, is an American professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea, best known for his writings on North Korean propaganda. He is a contributing editor for The Atlantic and an opinion columnist for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Myers is the author of Han Sǒrya and North Korean Literature, A Reader's Manifesto, The Cleanest Race, and North Korea's Juche Myth.
The Korean Liberation Army, also known as the Korean Restoration Army, was the armed forces of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. It was established on September 17, 1940, in Chongqing, Republic of China, with significant financial and personnel support from the Kuomintang. It participated in various battles and intelligence activities against the Japanese, including alongside the British Army in India and with the United States in the Eagle Project. The group only reached several hundred personnel at its peak, and faced constant funding issues, infighting, and difficulty achieving recognition from global powers.
Constitution Day or Jeheonjeol in South Korea is observed on 17 July, the day that the South Korean constitution was proclaimed in 1948. The date was deliberately chosen to match the founding date of 17 July of the Joseon dynasty.
South Korean–Taiwan relations
Sin Ik-hui was a Korean independence activist and politician. He was Speaker of the National Assembly during President Syngman Rhee's first term and second term.
Byun Hee-jae is a South Korean conservative political commentator. He is also one of the founder of conservative weekly newspaper name Mediawatch.
The Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula was adopted between the President of the Republic of Korea (ROK), Moon Jae-in and the President of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un, on 27 April 2018, during the 2018 inter-Korean Summit on the South Korean side of the Peace House in the Joint Security Area.
Lee Jong-seok is the 8th President of the Constitutional Court of Korea, appointed by President Yoon Suk Yeol in November 2023.
Yoon Suk Yeol is a South Korean politician currently serving as the 13th president of South Korea since 2022. Prior to his presidency, he served as the prosecutor general of South Korea between 2019 and 2021.
The People Power Party, formerly known as the United Future Party, is a conservative and right-wing political party in South Korea. It controls the South Korean presidency and is the second largest party in the National Assembly. The PPP, along with its historic rival, the Democratic Party, make up the two largest political parties in South Korea.
Nor, for that matter, is the new line that the Taehan minguk was not founded in August 1948, but instead came into existence when a provisional government was formed in Shanghai in 1919. I don't need to remind anyone of the internationally accepted criteria for statehood. The Blue House seems more interested in downgrading the republic that fought the North than in making a serious case for the statehood of something else. The original modest budget for the 70th anniversary of the ROK's founding has already been cut. The joint North-South commemoration of the March 1st uprising's 100th anniversary next year is likely to make the festivities this August 15 look subdued in comparison.
In closing, let me forestall reductio ad absurdum by again conceding that the left's discourse is by no means uniform. The 'radical' praises the North. The 'moderate' assails those who mistrust it. The one denies the legitimacy of the ROK founded in 1948. The other talks up the ROK-superseding legitimacy of an exile republic said to date back to 1919. But such differences are rhetorical, tactical. The point of the front after all is to appeal to all the constituencies it needs. One of them is the US government.
Yi Hae-sŏng, a young podcaster, was one of many conservatives who lamented Moon's reference to 1919 as the year in which the Republic of Korea was established. With those and other words, the president declared himself the heir to a nationalist and not a constitutional-democratic tradition, a man who will rule more in the spirit of the exile government that strove to liberate the minjok than of the republic that joined America in resisting North Korean aggression.