President of South Korea in the context of "Park Chung Hee"

The government of South Korea is the national government of the Republic of Korea, created by the Constitution of South Korea as the executive, legislative and judicial authority of the republic. The president acts as the head of state and is the highest figure of executive authority in the country, followed by the prime minister and government ministers in decreasing order.

The Executive and Legislative branches operate primarily at the national level, although various ministries in the executive branch also carry out local functions. Local governments are semi-autonomous and contain executive and legislative bodies of their own. The judicial branch operates at both the national and local levels.The South Korean government's structure is determined by the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. This document has been revised several times since its first promulgation in 1948 (for details, see History of South Korea). However, it has retained many broad characteristics; with the exception of the short-lived Second Republic of South Korea, the country has always had a relatively independent chief executive in the form of a president.

The opening ceremony of the 1988 Summer Olympics took place at Seoul Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, on 17 September 1988 at 10:30 KDT (UTC+10). The official song of this game was "Hand in Hand", which was performed by Koreana. The Games were officially opened by President of the Republic of Korea Roh Tae-woo.

The prime minister of the Republic of Korea (Korean: 국무총리) is the deputy head of government and the second highest political office of South Korea. The prime minister is appointed by the president of the Republic of Korea, with the National Assembly's approval. The prime minister may be a member of the National Assembly, but this is not required to hold the office.

Unlike prime ministers of parliamentary democracies, the prime minister of South Korea is not the head of government of South Korea but a senior member of the cabinet, since the president is both the head of state and head of government in the country. The prime minister is the principal executive assistant to the president, and is first in the order of succession; the prime minister assumes the presidency in acting capacity, upon the removal or incapacitation of the sitting president, similar to the vice president of the United States.

Syngman Rhee (Korean: 이승만; Hanja: 李承晚; pronounced [iː.sɯŋ.man]; 26 March 1875 – 19 July 1965), also known by his art name Unam (우남; 雩南), was a South Korean politician who served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. Rhee was also the first and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea from 1919 to his impeachment in 1925 and from 1947 to 1948. As president of South Korea, Rhee's administration was characterised by authoritarianism, limited economic development, and in the late 1950s growing political instability and public opposition to his rule.

Born in Hwanghae Province, Joseon, Rhee attended an American Methodist school, where he converted to Christianity. He became a Korean independence activist and was imprisoned for his activities in 1899. After his release in 1904, he moved to the United States, where he received degrees from American universities and met Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. After a brief 1910–12 return to Korea, he moved to Hawaii in 1913. In 1919, following the Japanese suppression of the March First Movement, Rhee joined the right-leaning Korean Provisional Government in exile in Shanghai. From 1918 to 1924, he served as the first President of the Korean Provisional Government until 1925. He then returned to the United States, where he advocated and fundraised for Korean independence. In 1939, he moved to Washington, DC. In 1945, he was returned to US-controlled Korea by the US military. On 20 July 1948, he was elected the first president of the Republic of Korea by the National Assembly, ushering in the First Republic of Korea.

Roh Tae-woo (Korean: 노태우, pronounced [no.tʰɛ.u]; 17 August 1932 – 26 October 2021) was a South Korean army general and politician who served as the sixth president of South Korea from 1988 to 1993. In 1987, he became the first president to be directly elected under the current democratic constitution, which was promulgated after a lengthy period of indirect elections under military governments following the advent of the Yushin Constitution in 1972.

Born in Daegu, Roh attended the Korea Military Academy alongside his close friend Chun Doo-hwan. Rising steadily through the ranks, he saw action in the Vietnam War, and by 1979 he was a major general and commanded the White Horse Division. In that capacity, Roh played a key role in the December 1979 military coup that brought Chun to power, and supported Chun's violent crackdown of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. Retiring from the army a year later, he held a series of ministerial posts in Chun's government.

The 2024 South Korean martial law crisis was a political crisis in South Korea triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol's declaration of martial law. On 3 December 2024, at 22:27 Korea Standard Time (KST), Yoon, then the president of South Korea, announced the imposition of martial law during a televised address. In his speech, he accused the Democratic Party (DPK), which held a majority in the National Assembly, of engaging in "anti-state activities" and collaborating with "North Korean communists" to undermine the country, describing their dominance as a "legislative dictatorship". The declaration suspended political activities, including sessions of the National Assembly and local legislatures, and imposed restrictions on the press. Reports also indicated that Yoon ordered the arrest of several political opponents, including leaders of both the DPK and his own People Power Party (PPP). The move was broadly characterised by both domestic and international media, as well as by South Korean political figures, as an attempted self-coup by Yoon to rule by decree and to reimpose full authoritarianism on the country for the first time since the June Democratic Struggle.

The declaration was opposed by both parties and resulted in protests. At 01:02 on 4 December, 190 legislators who had arrived at the National Assembly Proceeding Hall unanimously passed a motion to lift martial law, despite attempts by the Republic of Korea Army Special Warfare Command to prevent the vote. At 04:30, Yoon and his cabinet lifted martial law and soon disbanded the Martial Law Command. The opposition subsequently began impeachment proceedings against Yoon and said it would continue to do so if he did not resign. Uproar over the declaration has led to the resignation of several officials in Yoon's administration, including Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who urged Yoon to enact martial law during a last-minute cabinet meeting shortly before the declaration and was second-in-command of the martial law order. Yoon, as well as other officials of his administration, and military officers were investigated for their role in the implementation of the decree.

Yoon Suk Yeol (Korean: 윤석열, pronounced [jun sʰʌŋnjʌɭ]; born 18 December 1960) is a South Korean politician and attorney who served as the 13th president of South Korea from 2022 until his removal from office in 2025. A member of the People Power Party during his presidency, he was the shortest-serving directly elected president in the country's democratic history since 1987. Yoon previously served as the prosecutor general of South Korea from 2019 to 2021.

Born in Seoul, Yoon received his bachelor's and master's degrees in law from Seoul National University. In his capacity as chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, he played a key role in convicting former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak for abuse of power. In 2019, President Moon Jae-in appointed Yoon as Prosecutor General of South Korea. Under Yoon's leadership, the Supreme Prosecutor's Office conducted embattled investigations into Cho Kuk, an influential figure in the Moon administration, that led to Cho's resignation as Minister of Justice. Yoon's clashes with the Moon administration prior to his resignation as prosecutor general in 2021 led to his rise as a potential presidential candidate among conservative voters.

Beginning on January 3, 2025, South Korean authorities attempted to arrest Yoon Suk Yeol, president of South Korea at the time. Yoon had confined himself at his official presidential residence since his impeachment on December 14, 2024. The arrest warrant, granted on December 31 by the Seoul Western District Court, stemmed from investigations into Yoon's martial law declaration on December 3, as well as his refusal to attend any of the three summons demanded by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO). On January 15, 2025, after an infiltration of his residence, Yoon handed himself over to the CIO, ending the arrest effort.

The initial and unsuccessful arrest operation on January 3 resulted in a complex security standoff at his presidential residence in Hannam-dong, Yongsan, Seoul, involving multiple security forces and lasting several hours. After roughly six hours of confrontation at Yoon's residence, the CIO suspended their operations, citing safety concerns for personnel. It was unsuccessful mainly due to resistance from the Presidential Security Service and legal objections from Yoon's defense lawyers. The arrest warrant and raid marked the first arrest of a sitting president in the nation's history.

On 14 December 2024, Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, was impeached by the National Assembly following the passage of an impeachment bill with 204 of the 300 members voting in favor. This action came in response to Yoon's declaration of martial law on 3 December 2024.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo assumed the role of acting president pending the Constitutional Court's decision on whether to accept the impeachment. Han was himself impeached on 27 December 2024, and first deputy prime minister Choi Sang-mok became acting president. On 24 March 2025, Han was acquitted by the Constitutional Court and returned to the role of acting president.