Constitutional revision gaining momentum

Proposals to amend the Constitution are gaining momentum after the death of former leader Roh Moo-hyun, which tragically exposed the flaws of the current presidential system.

Parliamentary leaders are rallying behind proposals to reform the government structure, in which a president exerts an "emperor-like" power early but quickly falls into "lame-duck" status.

National Assembly Speaker Kim Hyong-o said yesterday he would move forward the revision debate in earnest around the July 17 Constitutional Day.

During a public forum Tuesday, floor leaders of both the ruling and opposition parties united in demanding a change to the single-term, five-year presidency and the decentralization of power currently concentrated in the chief executive.



"Currently, a president is supposed to be responsible for everything and therefore the inconvenient relationship (between former and incumbent presidents) becomes inevitable," Kim said in a lecture hosted by a human resources research institute.

He noted the continual misfortunes of former presidents who were, directly or indirectly, involved in corruption and abuse of power.

"This poses a tremendous hardship on the nation. It is time that we fundamentally refurbished the state system through a constitutional amendment," the speaker said.

The concentration of power in the president is said to have hampered the democratic process based on compromise and checks and balances.

Ahn Sang-soo, floor leader of the ruling Grand National Party, said Tuesday the "imperial presidency" leads to an "all-or-nothing" fight among political parties to gain it.

"Why has the National Assembly turned into a battleground? It is because the presidential election comes every five years," Ahn said during a forum hosted by a journalists` club.

"In this imperial presidency, the winner of a presidency wins all and the loser loses all. The power should be diffused so that a loser could be granted their share of opportunity."

He proposed a system under which power is shared between a popularly elected president and a parliament-elected prime minister.

Opposition parties also agree on the need for an amendment for a more balanced division of power.

The Democratic Party said the current system reduces the ruling party to the president`s tool for legislation, as shown by the relations between President Lee Myung-bak and the GNP.

"The emperor-like president is unwilling to communicate, the National Assembly has been incapacitated, and (the ruling party) cares only about what the president has in mind," charged Woo Yoon-keun, deputy floor leader of the DP.

The minor Liberty Forward Party has proposed weakening the central government and turning the state system into a federation of five to seven autonomous local governments.

The proposal to revise the constitution is already widely supported by the public and politicians across the ideological spectrum.

Under the current constitution, which resulted from a 1987 amendment, a president serves for five years and is prohibited from seeking reelection.

Politicians widely agree that the tenure limitation hinders a long-term, consistent policy line and has often caused early lame-duck status for a president.

A year before the 2007 election, Roh proposed an amendment to allow a president to serve two successive four-year terms and let presidential and parliamentary elections take place simultaneously.

The presidential election is currently once every five years and the parliamentary vote every four years.

He also called on parties to consider alternatives including a parliamentary government or a presidential-parliamentary dual cabinet system.

Almost all politicians rebuffed his proposal. They agreed with him in principle but thought the timing was not right and that the proposal was a political ploy to forge a favorable atmosphere for his allies.

Park Geun-hye of the GNP even called him "a very bad president" for trying to use the issue for electoral gain.

The parliamentary speaker revived the issue last year, pledging to achieve a revision before his two-year term ended in mid-2010.

But his initiative was also quickly put on the back burner with parties preoccupied with a series of contentious legislation issues and the economic crisis.

An experts group commissioned last August by the Assembly submitted draft reports to the speaker for revision in early April. A final version of the study will be advanced by the end of this month.

Talk of a constitutional revision has set the stage for a power game among conservatives.

In May, Park herself expressed support for changing the presidential tenure.

During a lecture at Stanford University, she said the basic law should be changed so that the presidential and parliamentary elections can be conducted simultaneously.

2012 would be the best time for such a change, with the next presidential election due in December and the parliamentary election in April.

Both elections take place on the same year once every 20 years under the current system.

Observers say Park apparently intends to use the constitutional revision as the central aspect in her challenge of President Lee and GNP mainstreamers in the lead up to the next presidential election.

Park is an undisputable frontrunner among potential presidential candidates in the GNP and conservative political circles.

To conduct elections under a new constitution, a revision should be achieved in the first half of 2011, so that parties can begin the process for candidate selection in the second half.

That means political parties should begin the debate in the second half of this year or the first half of 2010, given the necessary parliamentary processes and a referendum will take more than one year.

It is unclear whether President Lee and his allies will back the constitutional change.

If a revision is to happen, President Lee will have to shorten his term by several months.

An unwritten consensus is that any constitutional extension of a presidential term does not apply to the incumbent.

Many politicians believe Park is seeking to take the driver`s seat in the amendment campaign and rally political forces behind her cause later on.

If the GNP mainstream falters again in the by-elections this October and the local elections in June next year, Park could expect to gain momentum for her big-ticket gamble which would enhance her chances of gaining the GNP leadership and its presidential candidacy.

(jjhwang@heraldm.com)



By Hwang Jang-jin