Lee Jae-myung Wants ROK Presidential Terms to Change to 4-Years with one Reelection Chance
Considering the ROK’s past history of authoritarians seizing power, I think the five year term has been working very effectively for South Korea:
Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday argued for a shift to a four-year presidential term, renewable once, from the current single five-year term, saying he is willing to opt for a shorter term if elected.
“For responsible politics, (South Korea) needs a double, four-year term under which power is decentralized,” Lee of the Democratic Party said during an interview with cable channel MBN.
“Five years is not a span (sufficient for a president) to plan, enact and execute policies and see the results,” the presidential candidate said.
He said a constitutional amendment for that shift is needed now, and he is more than willing to accept a shorter four-year term if elected president.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
I think the five year term has been working very effectively for South Korea:
Not exactly.
The disadvantage of the single five year term is that once a person is elected President he/she does not need to fight for a second term, and that end of five years come around real fast, the single term becomes something of a seat warming presidency. (It feels like it was just yesterday that Moon was elected and now he has 50 days left in office)
Also, if you consider it will take a year to spin things up, and a year where the President is a lame duck, then he/she has three years to govern and implement policy. And three years is not what one would call enough time.
If a single term is to be implemented, IMO the single 7 year term under Chun Doo-hwan is about right, since it gives the sitting President 5 years to do his/her thing. And if you consider that a two-term US President will spend one year spinning things up, one year fighting election, and one year being a lame duck, then the amount of time available is about the same.
But considering how Koreans in general feel about Chun Doo-hwan, I highly doubt anyone would propose a single 7 year term for the presidency.
Yeah. And year 5 if reelected to another 4 year term is soooo much different…
Agree with TOK on this one. It’s also a reason why national policies are inconsistent and seem to change so quickly after a new party comes to power. The Conservative media are saying that the Conservatives are winning at the poll, while the Progressive media are saying the exact opposite. So it’s a safe time this year, to change the terms to 4years + 4years (while I prefer a 5years + 5years), as the maximum. It’s a good time to change the system now because nobody can say that this move is to shore up and extend the winning party’s rule. This should be enough to avoid the situation in Japan, where the same one-party ruled by oligarchical families of politicians have been in power, abusing and misruling the country for 70+ years.
In 1972 Park’s term was about up. I believe at that time a president could be elected to four terms. He didn’t want to give up this power, so he abolished the constitution and declared marshall law. The military took over the television and radio stations, along with the newspapers and universities. We all know how well that turned out for him. It was a pretty scary time in the republic.