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Roh Moo-hyun

Sponsorship the way you would do it
Roh Moo-hyun (In official transliteration: No Mu-hyeon ; Hangul: 노무현; Hanja: 盧武鉉) (b. August 6, 1946) is the current President of South Korea. He was elected to the presidency on December 19, 2002, and took office on February 25, 2003. On March 12, 2004 he was impeached by the National Assembly, with Prime Minister Goh Kun replacing him as acting president. The impeachment is currently under review by the the country's Constitutional Court. Before entering politics, Roh was a noted human rights lawyer.

Roh Moo-hyun vows at the inauguration of the 16th president of South Korea

Roh was born in 1946 to a poor farming family in Gimhae, near Busan, in southeastern South Korea. In 1960, he led a protest in his school against mandatory essays extolling his country's first autocrat. A high school graduate who never went to college, after serving in the Korean army he worked at odd jobs and studied on his own to pass the bar exam in 1975. In 1977 he became regional judge at Daejeon, and began privately practicing tax law in 1978. In 1981, he defended a case against students who had been tortured for possession of contraband literature. In early 2003, he was quoted as saying, "When I saw their horrified eyes and their missing toenails, my comfortable life as a lawyer came to an end." He opposed the autocracy in place at the time in South Korea, and helped lead the pro-democracy June Struggle in 1987 against the authoritarian president Chun Doo-hwan. The following year, he entered politics and "grilled" the government over corruption allegations and a 1980 massacre in Gwangju. In the same year, he was elected to the National Assembly (of lawmakers) representing the Unification Democratic Party(통일민주당) and shortly after gained popularity in the first parliament hearing which was broadcast thoughout the nation. After his failed bid for the parliament in 2000, Roh was appointed as the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries in 2001. He was elected the presidential candidate of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party in a landslide victory, eventually winning the presidency.

Roh entered office with an ambitious agenda—establishing Korea as the hub of northeast Asia, continuing the engagement policy or Sunshine policy towards North Korea started by his predecessor Kim Dae-Jung, redefining the security relationship with the United States, reform of contentious politics through compromise, decentralization of government, continuing pressure on chaebol and enhancing corporate transparency, reforming education and tax systems, improvement of labor-management relations. This ambitious program has stalled due to continuing controversy that has plagued Roh’s government, leading to intense criticism both from his supporters, who feel he has not held to his principles, and from those who have opposed his policies from the outset. His administration has been touched by allegations of corruption serious enough for him to propose a referendum on his performance. That proposal having constitutional problems, Roh then offered to step down from office if an investigation showed that his campaign team had illicitly collected as much as one-tenth of the $42 million found to have been illegally raised by the campaign for the opposition Grand National Party.

Roh with U.S. President Bush

Roh and his supporters left the Millennium Democratic Party in 2003 and a new party, the Uri Party (우리당—“Our Party” in Korean) was formed. His conciliatory North Korea policy is controversial with his opponents, and his decision to send troops to Iraq was controversial with his supporters. The country has become polarized over the United States with the young tending to an emotional anti-Americanism (exacerbated by incidents involving US troops stationed in Korea), while the older generation generally views the United States as the South’s staunch ally against the unpredictable North. Controversy within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade led to the replacement of the minister, and a contentious free trade treaty with Chile brought farmers to the streets.

With First Lady Kwon Yang-sook (In official transliteration: Gwon Yang-suk ; 권양숙 ; 權良淑), Roh has a daughter (Jeong-yeon (정연), born 1975), an embassy worker; and a son (Geon-ho (건호), born 1973), an electronics conglomerate employee.

On March 12, 2004, the South Korean parliament voted to impeach Roh Moo-hyun for illegal electioneering and incompetence charges. The vote was 193-2, with Roh's supporters abstaining from the vote. Pro-Roh Uri Party members had blocked the speaker's podium for 3 days to prevent a vote before being hauled out by opposition lawmakers and security guards. Prime Minister Goh Kun will run the country until the Constitutional Court rules on the impeachment.

The results of the April 2004 parliamentary election showed public support for him, with the Uri Party winning a majority of seats. Depending on the Constitutional Court decision, this will set the course for the remainder of his presidency, which ends in 2008.

See also: Politics of South Korea

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Preceded by:
Kim Dae-jung

Presidents of South Korea