President Kim Young Sam: A profile
By Chon Shi-yong
The life of President Kim Young-sam of the Republic of Korea reflects the turbulent political kaleidoscope of modern Korea. He spent his early years, until the age of 18, under the dark Japanese colonial rule and, since national liberation, has been the key witness to and architect of the country's rocky transition from military-dominated authoritarianism to democracy.
Except for a brief stint in the ruling party during his first year in the political arena, Kim spent most of his four decades in politics in the opposition camp, frequently falling victim to the successive dictatorial regimes. Along with Kim Dae-jung, his long-time opposition colleague and archrival, he stands out as the towering symbol of Koreans' struggle against authoritarian rule. His career was crowned by his election in 1992 as the first civilian president of the republic in 32 years.
Kim Young-sam was born on Dec. 20, 1927, on the island of Kojedo off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula as the only son among the six children of Kim Hong-jo, a successful fishery industrialist, and Park Bu-ryon. Kim's mother was killed in 1960 by a North Korean guerrilla.
After attending elementary school in his hometown, Kim went to middle school on the mainland and finished high school in Pusan, a southern port city which eventually became his political bastion. Kim went on to study philosophy at Seoul National University, the most prestigious university in Korea.
In his autobiography written by novelist Nam Hong-chin, Nam said that Kim had fostered political ambitions from as early as his middle school days. He wrote "Future President Kim Young-sam" on a piece of paper and kept it on the wall of his room in a lodging house.
Kim set out on the task of achieving his lifetime goal in 1954 when, at the age of 25, he was elected to the National Assembly, becoming the youngest person ever to become a national legislator. Kim ran in the parliamentary elections on the ticket of the ruling Democratic Party led by former President Syngman Rhee. But he bolted from the party in the same year in opposition to Rhee's attempt to extend his rule by amending the constitution. This put the young politician on a long, stony road to democratization.
Kim failed in his bid for reelection in the 1958 parliamentary elections, which were tainted by widespread vote rigging. But he successfully ran again for a National Assembly seat in the July 1960 elections, which were held three months after Rhee was toppled from power by a student-led mass movement. Kim was never again defeated in a parliamentary election.
On May 16, 1961, Maj. Gen. Park Chung Hee seized power in a military coup. Thereafter, Kim rose to the forefront of the Koreans' democratization movement and struggle against authoritarianism. Park's 18-year-long heavy-handed rule came to an abrupt end when the ex-general was assassinated in 1979. The period was eventful for Kim, to say the least. He was jailed, suffered an acid attack, declared his candidacy for opposition presidential nominee - but lost it to Kim Dae-jung, and became the youngest president of a major opposition party. In an interview with The New York Times in 1979, Kim characterized the Park government as a dictatorship. Consequently he was expelled from the National Assembly in 1979, after being accused by the government of "insulting the head of state". Violent popular demonstration immediately erupted in the area of Pusan and nearby Masan in protest of his expulsion. The consequent political chaos led to Park's assassination on Oct. 26, 1979.
Taking advantage of the power vacuum following Park's death, a group of military leaders led by Army Gen. Chun Doo Hwan rose to power, and Kim was put under house arrest for two years. The political ban on Kim and other opposition leaders was not lifted until March 1985. Despite the ban, however, Kim continued his fight against authoritarian rule. He went on a 23-day hunger strike demanding democratic reforms in 1983, and one year later organized the Council for the Promotion of Democracy to get around the political ban.
Chun and his military classmate and designated heir, ex- general Roh Tae Woo, bowed to public pressure in the end and accepted virtually all of the opposition demands. Roh, however, won the direct presidential election on 17 December 1987 after Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung split the opposition vote.
In 1990, despite criticism from his political opponents as well as his own supporters, Kim decided to merge his opposition party with another opposition party and the ruling party led by President Roh to create a larger ruling party, the Democratic Liberal Party (DLP). And overcoming strong challenges from rivals inside the new party, Kim went on to win the nomination of the DLP as its candidate for the December 1992 presidential elections. Kim prevailed over a field of seven candidates and earned the highest number of votes ever for a presidential candidate, as well as recorded the widest margin with the first runner-up, Kim Dae-jung. Kim won the presidency in the fairest elections in Korea's modern history and inaugurated a genuinely civilian government.