Alternative History

Chun Doo-hwan (18 January 1931) is a former Korean military leader and soldier who served as President of Korea from September 1980 until he retired at the end of his constitutionally-mandated seven-year term in May of 1988. Chun was the leader of the 1979 coup d'état that overthrew the Korean National Party and installed in its place a military junta, succeeded by the "Third Republic" under the 1981 Constitution. Chun developed a personality cult around himself and governed as a strict authoritarian, with massacres against student protestors and disappearances occurring throughout his term. However, he mostly kept Korea's export model economy developed under Pak Mae-Hyeong and the KNP going, and as a result of Korea's breakneck growth during the 1980s - at one time the fastest-growing economy in the world - the 1990 Olympic Games were given to Hanseong in a major win for his regime. He moved the Korean Presidency's residence from Gyeongbok Palace to the Blue House, ended Korea's nuclear weapons program while deepening its commitment to civilian nuclear energy, and helped normalize relations with Japan and the United States.

Toward the end of his term, he proposed abolishing the limit on a single seven-year term for the Presidency - massive street protests in the fall of 1987 dissuaded his ruling Democratic Republican Party from following through on that motion. With his plans for a second seven years in the Blue House dashed, Chun entered retirement after his chosen successor Roh Tae-woo was narrowly defeated in the 1988 elections by Kim Young-sam. His leaving office in 1988 marked the first genuinely peaceful transfer of power between political parties in Korean history. Chun was later indicted and convicted in the late 1990s for human rights violations and corruption and served ten years in prison until his controversial commutation by President Lee Myung-bak.