South Koreans eye constitutional change to president’s power after martial law

In recent years, presidential candidates from across the political spectrum have supported revisions, including giving presidents two four-year terms, but there have been few concrete steps after new leaders were chosen.

A Gallup Korea opinion survey last month found 67 per cent of respondents supported revising the constitution to fix the presidential system, with 21 per cent saying it is unnecessary.

In April, Lee rejected a proposal by Woo Won-shik, the speaker of the parliament, to hold a referendum on constitutional reform on the Jun 3 presidential election day.

At the time, Lee said ending the political turmoil was the top priority. 

The next president should begin to gather public consensus based on election pledges for the constitutional amendment and move forward with bipartisan support, he told reporters on Sunday.

Kim and his party criticised Lee for not pledging to reduce the term for the next presidency, but Lee said stable governance and economic recovery would be more important for the next leader than spending much of the term only on the constitutional revision.   

Professor Chae said that while Lee and Kim shared similar goals, the two contenders were driven by differing motivations.

“I think candidate Kim put forward the idea of a transitional government to revise the constitution as a way to apologise for the martial law,” he said.

“Candidate Lee initially didn’t want to jump to it, not to divert attention toward him, but now he is saying it to bring in more moderate voters.”