Rise To Power
On 25 April 1960, Syngman Rhee, the first President of South Korea, was forced out of office following the April 19 Movement, a student-led uprising. A new democratic government took office on August 13, 1960. However this was a short-lived period of parliamentary rule in South Korea. Yun Bo-seon, was a figurehead president, with the real power vested in Prime Minister, Chang Myon. Problems arose immediately because neither man commanded the loyalty from the majority of the Democratic Party or could agree on the composition of the cabinet. Prime Minister Chang attempted to hold the tenuous coalition together by reshuffling cabinet positions three times within five months.
Meanwhile, the new government was caught between an economy that was suffering from a decade of mismanagement and corruption by the Rhee presidency and the students who had led to Rhee's ousting. The students regularly filled the streets, making numerous and wide-ranging demands for political and economic reforms. Law and order could not be maintained because the police, long an instrument of the Rhee government, were demoralized and had been completely discredited by the public. Continued factional wrangling caused the public to turn away from the party.
Read more about this topic: Park Chung-hee
Famous quotes containing the words rise to, rise and/or power:
“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
—Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990)
“There is one thing that the American people always rise to and extend their hand to and that is the truth of justice, and of liberty, and of peace. We have accepted that truth and we are going to led by it ... and through us the world, out into pastures of quietness and peace such as the world never dreamed of before.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin—and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)