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The Activity of the Ruling Party Formation in the First Half of the 2nd National Assembly and the ‘Inside’ Liberal Party

Yi Hye-young 1

1건양대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to analyze the activity for the formation of the ruling party in the first half of the second National Assembly. It is generally known that Rhee Syngman came into power without political party, and it was not until December 1951 that he founded the Liberal Party. By the way, that Liberal Party was externally-originated party(‘outside’ Liberal Party), which was formed with mass movement groups as a core. The forces within the National Assembly who participated in the movement for the formation of the new party created a Liberal Party separately(‘inside’ Liberal Party). The reason why the formation work of the ruling party divided into two parts was the fundamental difference in political system they aim at. Rhee and the ‘outside’ Liberal Party wanted to strengthen the presidential system, so they pushed ahead with a constitutional amendment for the direct election system. However, the goal of the forces within the National Assembly was the constitutional amendment for the parliamentary system. In other words, they tried to form a ruling party and take charge of government directly in the parliamentary system by cooperating with Rhee. It was the misrule of the Rhee government which led the ‘inside’ Liberal Party to draw up the constitutional amendment for the parliamentary system. The government’s inability and misrule revealed during the war were culminated by the National Defence Corps Scandal and the Geochang Massacre occurred in the spring of 1951, so they reviewed the constitutional amendment for the parliamentary system as a solution. To this end, the New Political Comrades Association(NPCA) and the Republican Club(RC) combined in May 1951 to form the Republican People’s Political Association(RPPA), which was the predecessor of the ‘inside’ Liberal Party. The NPCA was a pro-Rhee faction within the National Assembly, and the RC was politically neutral but they took the most critical stance on the misrule of the government. Despite the differences in political orientation, the two groups combined in order to hold the Democratic Nationalist Party(DNP) in check and to rule under the parliamentary system as the first force within the National Assembly. However, their plan to form a ruling party by integrating with the pro-Rhee faction outside the National Assembly began to fail because of the constitutional amendment issue. In particular, a bill for constitutional amendment submitted by Rhee in January 1952 was rejected by the National Assembly, and the pro-Rhee faction outside the National Assembly started the movement to recall National Assemblymen against the rejection. This was the direct cause of the separation of the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ Liberal Parties. Moreover, pro-Rhee faction of the ‘inside’ Liberal Party formed a “Pro-amalgamation Liberals” to promote integration of the two Liberal Parties, and consequently the ‘inside’ Liberal Party was divided into the Pro-amalgamation Liberals and the “Remaining Liberals”. In the end, the latter joined with the DNP for the purpose of amending the constitution for parliamentary system while trying to replace Rhee through assembly election. However, their attempts failed because Rhee proclaimed martial law and caused political upheaval. Rhee eventually succeeded in amending the constitution for the direct election system and the ‘inside’ Liberal Party was dissolved and vanished. However, their conception of the constitutional amendment for the parliamentary system had continued since then and became the specific goal and base of the opposition movement in the late 1950s.

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