President Yoon Suk Yeol has officially become the third South Korean president to face an impeachment trial, following the National Assembly’s passage Saturday of a motion to initiate the process for his removal from office.
While Yoon is widely seen as having brought disgrace upon himself due to his ill-fated martial law attempt on Dec. 3, he now joins a long list of troubled Korean presidents.
Here are six presidents whose careers have been ended in disgrace or tragedy.
1. Park Geun-hye, the first South Korean president to be impeached
Park Geun-hye, who became Korea’s first female president in 2013, was also the first sitting president to be removed from office by impeachment.
A political scandal in the fall of 2016 uncovered myriad irregularities in her administration. In Park’s impeachment trial, the Constitutional Court heard accusations of abuse of power, infringements on freedom of speech, corruption, neglect of her duty to protect the citizens’ lives, and a violation of the people’s sovereignty by allowing her civilian confidante to manipulate state affairs.
This included accusations that Park accepted bribes from conglomerates, blacklisted artists and celebrities who were critical of her policies, and dismissed officials who opposed her. She is also believed to have received billions of won in bribes from Lee Jae-yong, the now-chair of Samsung Electronics who served time for the bribes.
The Constitutional Court in 2017 upheld the impeachment in a unanimous 8-0 decision.
In the criminal investigation that followed her impeachment, Park, the eldest daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, was found guilty of multiple charges including abuse of power, coercion and election law violations, and was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
It was none other than Korea’s current president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who played a major part in the investigation that put her behind bars.
As a result of her incarceration, Park was stripped of all benefits that former presidents are entitled to, except for security protection.
Park’s successor Moon Jae-in pardoned her in December 2021, and she was released from prison later that month.
2. Lee Myung-bak, sentenced to 17 years in prison
Park’s predecessor Lee Myung-bak was indicted by prosecutors in 2018, five years after he completed his term as president, for suspected embezzlement, bribery and abuse of power.
The prosecution zeroed in on allegations of corruption dating back to Lee’s presidential campaign in 2007, during which his main rival for his party’s nomination was Park Geun-hye herself. In a bitter irony, the race for the nomination saw the two conservative politicians hurl accusations of corruption against each other.
Samsung was revealed to be one of Lee’s benefactors as well. It was found that Samsung Group — then under leadership of the late Lee Kun-hee — had paid billions of won in litigation fees on behalf of DAS, an auto parts maker whose true owner the Supreme Court in 2020 recognized as former president Lee.
Lee’s incarceration resulted in the loss of all the benefits provided to former presidents. But he too was pardoned by his successor, who in this case was Korea’s current leader, President Yoon.
3. Roh Moo-hyun, died by suicide amid investigation of his family
Roh Moo-hyun, who was in office from 2003 to 2008, was investigated under his successor Lee Myung-bak as part of a large-scale bribery probe targeting Roh’s family and friends.
Roh himself was cleared of bribery charges involving 1.5 billion won he received from businessman Park Yeon-cha when prosecutors found that it was a loan with an interest rate and a specific date for its repayment.
But the investigation found that Roh’s wife, as well as the husband of one of his nieces and his former presidential secretary, had also accepted money from Park, for which Roh was grilled by the prosecution. Roh said he did not know of such payments, and was reportedly furious with his wife for taking the money.
The prosecution targeted Roh himself as a bribery suspect, and during the intense investigation, Roh jumped off a cliff near his home in South Gyeongsang Province in May 2009. The investigation was closed after Roh’s death.
4. Chun Doo-hwan’s dictatorship ended by protests
In 1979, then-two-star Army Gen. Chun Doo-hwan pulled off a successful military coup against then-President Choi Kyu-hah. After taking control of the military, Chun conducted a bloody crackdown against pro-democracy protests across the country and eventually had himself elevated to the presidency in 1980.
South Korea at the time did not have direct elections in which each citizen casts a vote. On top of that, the committee handling presidential elections was headed by none other than the incumbent president, meaning an ironfisted leader could abuse the system to stay in power.
In 1987, people across the country engaged in demonstrations demanding direct elections. In January of that year, a college student and protestor by the name of Park Jong-chul was found to have been killed during brutal interrogation by the police, who tortured him to reveal the locations of other student protestors.
While the authorities covered up the circumstances of Park’s death, pro-democracy activists, opposition lawmakers and the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice eventually got the truth out to the general public. The news sparked a nationwide furor and what is now known as the June Struggle of 1987.
The Chun administration eventually gave in to the people’s demands, pledging a direct election system and the release from prison of prominent opposition politician Kim Dae-jung, who later became president himself.
The next election, however, was won by Chun’s friend and fellow general Roh Tae-woo, who had also played a key role in the 1979 coup. Roh was able to win the election because the two other candidates, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam, were unable to settle their differences, resulting in a split vote.
After leaving office, both Chun and Roh were convicted of treason in 1996. Roh was eventually sentenced to 17 years in prison and Chun — initially sentenced to death — to life in prison.
Both of them were pardoned by their political rival Kim Dae-jung in 1998 and 1999, when Kim was president.
5. Strongman Park Chung-hee was assassinated
Park Chung-hee, the father of Park Geun-hye, maintained an ironfisted rule over South Korea for nearly two decades since he rose to power in a military coup in 1961.
But his firm grip on the country was challenged when former spy chief Kim Hyung-uk published a tell-all memoir exposing negative sides of the Park administration.
Kim disappeared mysteriously in Paris in October 1979, but Park’s feud with his former right-hand man and then-spy chief Kim Jae-gyu blew up later that month when Kim assassinated Park during dinner.
The power vacuum left by Park’s assassination enabled Chun Doo-hwan to seize control in the coup of December 1979.
6. Syngman Rhee, overthrown for election rigging, died in exile
South Korea’s founding president, Syngman Rhee, is among the political figures most revered by the conservative bloc today. He was elected president in 1948 and won the 1960 election handily after the only other candidate in the election died.
But the then-ruling Liberal Party was concerned over losing the vice presidency to the opposition, and rigged the vote to ensure that its candidate Lee Ki-poong would win.
This led to nationwide protests in April 1960, pressuring Rhee to step down on April 26. He was forced into exile in Hawaii the next month, where he lived until his death in 1965.
But it was a short-lived victory for the people, as Rhee’s successor Yun Po-sun would retain power for just a year until he was overthrown by Park Chung-hee’s military coup of 1961.
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