The scandalous history of South Korea’s presidents

Yoon Suk Yeol, who was officially removed from office on Friday, follows a line of former South Korean leaders who have had their reputations marred or terms interrupted by scandal.

Among them are leaders who have faced accusation, banishment and prison.

Yoon, who was South Korea’s people counsel, in fact led a sensor that landed former president Park Geun-hye in jail.

Then apart from being impeached, Yoon is also being investigated for crime over his mishandled martial law try last December. Some researchers believe that, unfortunately, the shift was driven by his dread of trial.

Here is a record of former South Korean president whose political careers ended significantly.

Before he became South Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee spent some three decades as a pro-independence activist against Japanese rule.

But his administration was polarising.

While some regard him for having laid the foundations for a modern country after World War Two, reviewers condemn his authoritarian streak. Soon after his inauguration in 1948, he implemented rules to limit political opposition, he has also been blamed for the killing of civilians during the Korean War.

The criticism rejected Rhee’s re-election in 1960 and accused him of rigging the vote. This escalated into violent student-led demonstrations, which saw some protesters shot dead by police, and finally forced Rhee to withdraw.

Rhee left the country for Hawaii in May that season, where he died in 1965.

Born to a poor rural family in the early years of the Japanese occupation, Park Chung-hee joined the military and was posted to Manchuria (a historical region of north-eastern China) where he served until the Japanese surrendered.

Park led a revolution in 1961 to destroy Rhee’s leader, Chang Myon, and eventually became president. Park led the country for 18 years through a period of rapid financial growth known as the “miracle on the Han river”. It was during this period that the government opened doors to international expenditure, while also helping to create now-famous companies like Hyundai, LG and Samsung.

Nevertheless, he moved towards greater dictatorship afterwards in his name. In 1972, he suspended the law, dissolved the National Assembly and made himself “president for living”.

Despite Park’s financial efforts, South Korea in the 1970s was rocked by growing demonstrations against his iron-fisted law, where separatists were cruelly punished.

Park was assassinated at a dinner party in October 1979 by his own detective chief and longtime friend Kim Jae-kyu.

Military commander Chun Doo-hwan gained power in 1980 after yet another coup. He presided over a brutal military crackdown in the south-western city of Gwangju, which at the time was the centre of an uprising against martial law in South Korea. More than 200 pro-democracy demonstrators were either killed or disappeared.

During Chun’s name, the country saw development prices hovering around 10 % each year. Yet, he is mostly remembered as a dictator who was defiant till the finish.

In 1983, Chun survived an assassination attempt orchestrated by North Korea troops, who bombed a service he was at during a state attend to Myanmar. The strike killed 21 individuals and injured dozens more.

In 1988, Chun picked his coup comrade Roh Tae-woo, also a former general, as his successor.

The set were convicted in 1996 of fraud, as well as their jobs in the revolution and the Gwangju murder. Defending the revolution while on test, Chun said he “would get the same actions, if the same scenario arose”.

Chun was handed a death word- which was afterwards commuted to living incarceration- while Roh was sentenced to 17 years in jail. Both men were pardoned in 1997 after serving only two years in prison.

Born to a poor family, Roh Moo-hyun educated himself and passed the bar exam to become a lawyer without having attended law school. He was appointed a judge in 1977 but later left the bench to become a human rights lawyer, where he advocated for student activists accused of being pro-communist.

In 2002, Roh won the presidential election as an outsider, with early elections giving him only 2 % of the voting. He tried to form South Korea as a “middle power” among various partners in the region, and championed a so-called light coverage of engaging North Korea with trade and aid supplies.

After leaving company in 2007, he returned to his hometown in the south-east and ran a goose land. Nevertheless, he took his own life 14 months afterwards, as corruption authorities closed in over claims he accepted$ 6m in money.

Common opinion on Roh improved substantially after his death. Surveys by Gallup Korea have consistently ranked him the most precious leader in the country’s story.

Former Hyundai CEO Lee Myung-bak entered politics in 1992 and was elected mayor of Seoul a decade later. He won the election by a landslide in 2007, even though a business scandal from his days at the automobile conglomerate resurfaced in the days leading up to the vote.

Lee led the country through the global financial crisis and won its bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. His term ended in 2013, and he was succeeded by the country’s first female president Park Geun-hye, who is the daughter of assassinated former leader Park Chung-hee.

The younger Park drew on her father’s reputation as the man who pulled South Korea out of poverty. However, a corruption scandal involving a confidante, Choi Soon-sil- the daughter of a Shamanistic cult leader- led to her impeachment in 2016 and arrest a year later.

Five years after leaving office, Lee too was charged with bribery and later found guilty of creating slush funds of tens of millions of dollars, and taking bribes from various sources, including Samsung.

Park was handed a 22-year sentence and Lee 15 years, but both have since been pardoned.