Post

^{President Rhee & Premier Kang}

| _{The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea today elected its first President, Syngman Rhee was one of two candidates put forward for the role the other being Kim Gu the former leader of the Provisional Government. Rhee won with a landslide of delegates backing him, it was later revealed that Gu hadn’t known about his nomination until after the voting had finished, which made Rhee’s election all but certain.} |

| _{Rhee is known for his hard-line stance against communism and his closeness to the US Government and General Douglas MacArthur; Rhee was born in 1875 in Gaeseong and educated at a school run by American missionaries in Seoul where he converted to Christianity. He founded a daily newspaper and organised protests against corruption and against Japanese and Russian designs on Korea, by removing King Gojong from power. For this, he was jailed in 1897. For seven months of this seven-year sentence, his head was locked in a wooden weight, his feet were in stocks and his hands cuffed. He was beaten with rods and had oiled paper wrapped around his arms and set on fire.} |

| _{Rhee has his fairshare of doubters; the former members of the Provisional Government, which was the longest in existence, had Rhee impeached in 1925 for misuse of power which many of them believe is a clue to what his presidency will unfold as. Rhee ignores these accusations claiming that they are merely bitter to have not had a role in rebuilding Korea following the US occupation. Time will tell whether Rhee can reunite Korea or even keep the south together itself.} |

| _{In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea it too elected its first new leader in the form of Kang Ryang-uk, in a no less democratic manner. All parties in the newly formed Supreme People’s Assembly aligned with the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea, who support Kang as Premier of the DPRK, only 16 candidates in the election were from parties not a member of the DFRK none of which won election.} |

| _{Kang was rather an unknown factor in Korea’s independence movement, not to say he wasn’t active, but his selection as the favoured leader by the Soviets came about as others either fell out of favour or declined the position, like his nephew Kim Il-sung, who has since taken up a less senior cabinet position. Kang is a well known former Presbyterian minister having completed studies in Theology at Pyongyang University in the 1940s, before which he was teacher, and even taught his nephew. Initially founding the Korean Christian Federation which was closely aligned to the Communist Party of Korea, which now all ministers have to register to. Kang quickly became the favoured choice of the Soviet leadership after Kim Il-sung declined the position to take up a less senior position in favour of his uncle who was seen as a rather charismatic figure thanks to his sermons as a minister.} |

| _{Kang, unlike many of the candidates initially suggested to the Soviets, favoured the idea of a trusteeship despite its unpopularity believing it could help create a stable beginning for Korea under the watchful guidance of the Soviet Union. His policies so far have strongly distanced the north from its southern counterpart. The northern half of Korea is a mineral rich area with a large industrial sector; with recent land redistribution helping the agricultural sector recover as most of the farmland was south of the 38th Parallel.} |

| _{As the two men take the reigns of their respective halves of Korea, which they both claim to be the sole legitimate successor state to the Empire of Korea, it will be seen whether they can reconcile their differences to eventual reunite the Peninsula or whether they will doom Korea to be forever divided between north and south. Occasional border clashes have already occurred since 1945 but have seen an uptick since the two nations were officially declared independent, with President Rhee already sabre-rattling in a speech which he declared a ‘march to the north’. Korea’s first focus should be on fixing the abject poverty in which many live, but for now it seems to be who will invade who.} |