2022 Menghean democratic reforms
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.jpg) Protesters in Heroes' Square hold a candlelight vigil one week after the Bloody Friday crackdown. | |||
| Date | 13 May - 9 June 2022 | ||
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| Methods | Protest marches and civil disobedience | ||
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In the summer of 2022, the Socialist Republic of Menghe implemented a series of democratic reforms which were intended to increase the level of political competition in the country's government. The full chain of events comprising these reforms included the arrest and dismissal of Kang Yong-nam as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the resignation of Kim Pyŏng-so as Chairman of the Supreme Council, the drafting of a provisional election law, the holding of snap multiparty elections to the National Assembly, and the passage of a sweeping package of constitutional amendments which formally shifted Menghe from a de jure one-party system to a parliamentary system.
These reforms were successful at reducing the concentration of power at the top of Menghe's political pyramid, and they did allow the formation of genuine opposition political parties for the first time since the 1920s. Nevertheless, though they removed legal barriers to democratic competition, the 2022 reforms still left the playing field skewed in favor of the Menghean Socialist Party, which emerged from the 2022 snap elections with a commanding supermajority in the National Assembly.
Background
By the spring of 2022, Menghe had endured more than 95 years of continuous undemocratic government, starting from Kwon Chong-hoon's military coup in 1927. Following the Decembrist Revolution, the Interim Council for National Restoration had made some promises of democratic reform, and the 1990 Constitution included clauses promising free democratic competition, but by 1994 it was clear that the Socialist Republic of Menghe had become a one-party state under the leadership of the Menghean Socialist Party.
Choe Sŭng-min's legacy
From his leading role in the Decembrist Revolution in 1987 up to his death in February 2021, Choe Sŭng-min had served as dictator of Menghe for a total of 33 years. This period was, and remains, controversial and contested. On the one hand, Choe played a central role in rolling back civil and political rights and removing checks and balances on the country's core leadership, even building a personality cult that included mandatory reading of the Collected Quotations from Choe Sŭng-min in public schools and the enshrinement of Choe Sŭng-min Thought in the Constitution. On the other hand, Choe Sŭng-min also presided over a series of economic reforms which contributed to a period of rapid growth, with average incomes rising more than tenfold between 1988 and 2021 even after adjusting for inflation.
Among Choe Sŭng-min's dictatorial tendencies was his refusal to share power with a successor-in-waiting. After eliminating a number of potential rivals, including military officers of higher rank, between 1987 and 1994, Choe Sŭng-min was determined to avoid sharing power. This determination continued after a group of higher officials collectively urged him to end the Disciplined Society Campaign in 2003, under the implicit threat that they would attempt to remove him otherwise. Choe appointed Kim Pyŏng-so as First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council in 2009, and renewed his appointment in 2014 and 2019, which many observers saw as a signal that Kim was being groomed as a possible successor. Yet Kim Pyŏng-so was only a few years younger than Choe Sŭng-min, and he rose through the ranks mainly due to his lack of ambition: Choe saw him as a loyal and unthreatening confidant rather than a promising leader. In keeping with this style, Choe also sternly forbade any other officials from attempting to build a cult of personality, even through routine campaigning and publicity work.
Adding to the succession dilemma, the five successive elections of the Chairman of the Supreme Council between 1999 and 2019 were conducted by a simple voice vote in which the members of the National Assembly shouted their assent for the incumbent Chairman to remain in office, meaning that the Menghean government had not even ceremonially run through the full procedure of selecting a new leader. The selection of the Chairman of the Supreme Council was also widely regarded within Menghe as the most undemocratic component of the political system.
Succession disputes
Choe Sŭng-min's death ushered in a period of profound instability for the system he had built. First, partly due to Choe's efforts to restrict rival personality cults, none of Choe's successors-in-waiting enjoyed the same level of popular appeal. Mun Chang-ho was generally regarded as the most popular, especially among younger, more educated, and more urban citizens, but even he lacked the same breadth of appeal as the former Chairman. Without Choe Sŭng-min's personal halo effect spilling over onto the rest of the Socialist Party, criticism of the regime grew more widespread.
Second, none of Choe's successors enjoyed the same unanimity of elite support. As First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council and the eldest of the three, Kim Pyŏng-so had the support of many senior bureaucrats and Party conservatives, but due to the same unambitious nature that had endeared him to Choe Sŭng-min, he had not actively worked to broaden his political support. Mun Chang-ho, the First Deputy Secretary of the Menghean Socialist Party, had built up a large following among younger and more liberal-minded officials during his rise through the ranks, particularly during periods when Choe Sŭng-min was hospitalized and unable to rule the country directly. Yet Mun's political ambition and known liberal tendencies did not sit well with members of the conservative old guard and the security apparatus. This created an opening for Marshal Kang Yong-nam, the Supreme Commander of the Menghean Army, to build a secret alliance of allies in the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Internal Security. Kang enjoyed some public support due to his role in the Innominadan Crisis, but liberal-minded officials mostly regarded him as a dangerous reactionary, and his legal position to inherit the country's political leadership was weakest.
At a closed-door meeting during the official mourning period, Mun Chang-ho agreed to endorse Kim Pyŏng-so's full succession to the triple posts of Chairman of the Supreme Council, General-Secretary of the Menghean Socialist Party, and Supreme Commander of the Menghean Armed Forces. This avoided a possible triumvirate scenario in which each of the three rivals would have ascended to the highest posts in their respective factions.
Causes
Death of Choe Sŭng-min
From his self-coup in 1988 until his death in 2021, Choe Sŭng-min was the effectively undisputed leader of the Socialist Republic of Menghe. He faced some rivals between 1988 and 1993, and after 2003 he made an effort to share power more effectively and tone down his personality cult, but for more than three decades he was the lynchpin of Menghe's political system.
At an institutional level, this meant that the Menghean government rested heavily on the influence and importance of a single individual, not on the effectiveness of its formal institutions. National Assembly elections for the Chairman of the Supreme Council were a pure political ritual to re-elect Choe Sŭng-min, with no serious contestation or debate among candidates. The Menghean Armed Forces enjoyed a great deal of autonomy on paper, a tendency in Menghean politics which hearkened back to the Sangwŏn Agreement of 1958, but as a keen politician and an experienced Army officer, Choe Sŭng-min was able to keep the armed forces under his control. Even after relinquishing some of his powers in 2003, Choe Sŭng-min also steadfastly blocked any officials who seemed poised to emerge as rivals, motivated by a concern that one of his higher-ranking subordinates might attempt to seize the throne. His presumed successor-in-waiting, Kim Pyŏng-so, was chosen mainly because of his dutiful obedience as a yes-man and his apparent lack of ambition to wield power. As his health began failing from 2018 onward, Choe Sŭng-min did tacitly greenlight Mun Chang-ho's rise in influence and began delegating more tasks to Kim Pyŏng-so, but his own position as the ultimate decision-maker was never seriously challenged.
At a mass level, a great deal of the MSP's popularity was rooted in support for Choe himself. Before coming to power, Choe Sŭng-min had challenged the unpopular policies of Ryŏ Ho-jun; in the Decembrist Revolution, he had thwarted the Menghean People's Communist Party's attempt to suppress a crowd of protesters; his economic reforms had ushered in the Menghean economic miracle, which brought tremendous improvements in the standard of living; and he had ordered Menghe's intervention in the Innominadan Crisis, which resulted in a quick and easy victory which greatly improved Menghe's ability to contest the Strait of Portcullia. Even after the height of Choe's personality cult had passed, he was still widely seen as a strong, capable, and morally upright ruler, and respected for his contributions to national well-being. After his death, however, no other leading official could marshal the same degree of popular support, especially because both Choe and his subordinates had steadfastly opposed any effort to create a cult of personality for any other official. Mun Chang-ho was well-liked for some of his policy positions, but enjoyed none of the same ostentatious praise; Kim Pyŏng-so was cast in propaganda as Choe Sŭng-min's successor, but even this depiction mostly highlighted his status as second-in-command rather than his actual leadership capabilities.
Thus, with Choe Sŭng-min no longer in command, the Menghean Socialist Party was beset by both elite and popular challenges. At the elite level, no one individual could marshal the same degree of influence that Choe had commanded; at the mass level, no individual could marshal the same degree of support that Choe had enjoyed. A three-way power struggle soon emerged between Kim Pyŏng-so, who had inherited the "triple throne" positions of General Secretary of the Party, Chairman of the Supreme Council, and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces; Mun Chang-ho, who had emerged as a prominent liberalizing reformer and economic policymaker but allied himself with Kim after Choe's death; and Kang Yong-nam, the Marshal of the Menghean Army, who enjoyed the support of a "security faction" made up of hardline nationalists in the Menghean Army and the Ministry of Internal Security.
Demographic trends
Another factor behind the erosion of the MSP's authoritarian regime was a demographic shift in Menghean society. In Wi Yŏng-su's four-generation schema, the "fighting generation" and "hardship generation" born before 1960 were heavily supportive of the MSP's nationalist agenda, as were the "Yusin generation" born between 1980 and 2000, who experienced Menghe's economic miracle firsthand. The generation born after 2000, however, had grown up in relatively well-off circumstances, and shared no collective memory of the poverty, famine, and foreign occupation that had affected previous generations. As a result, many young people in this generation were less willing than their forebears to sacrifice freedom and liberty in return for stability and economic growth, and more likely to see freedom and democracy as intrinsically important, in line with a postmaterialist trend seen in many other countries.
By 2022, the post-2000 generation still made up a relatively small share of the Menghean voting public, but they accounted for nearly the entirety of college and high school students, alongside individuals on the tail end of the Yusin generation. Dissent on college campuses had already become common in the years before Choe Sŭng-min's death, and it accelerated after February 2021, with many liberal youths dissatisfied with Kim Pyŏng-so's conservative and inflexible leadership. College-age students would also account for a majority of the protesters who occupied Heroes' Square in late May and early June 2022.
Second Pan-Septentrion War
At the outset, the Menghean government's decision to initiate the Second Pan-Septentrion War enjoyed widespread support among the Menghean public, boosting pro-regime sentiment to levels not seen since the Innominadan Crisis in 2014. Independent opinion polling found that Menghean citizens overwhelmingly believed that Menghe's preemptive strike on Entente land and naval assets was a justified act of self-defense, and supported continuing the war until the government's objectives were achieved.
Public opinion began to shift, however, after then Menghean Armed Forces encountered serious setbacks. During the first week of fighting, the Menghean Army advanced into Innominadan territory according to prewar plans, but suffered serious setbacks in Southwest Menghe, ceding 200 kilometers of Menghean soil to a combined push by three Maverican field armies. By the end of the second week, Maverican ground forces were pushing into the outskirts of Gwangbo while shelling the city with heavy artillery. Namhae Front coalition forces also ceded ground in Dzhungestan as part of a planned defense-in-depth operation, but were unable to retake it due to the arrival of a second wave of Maverican reserve forces. This situation made for a stark contrast with prewar propaganda, which had promised a swift victory fought predominantly on enemy soil. As casualties mounted and the front lines shifted backward, Menghean citizens began criticizing the government and the armed forces over their conduct of the war, demanding to know why Menghe was apparently so ill-prepared for a foreign invasion despite taking the initiative with a pre-emptive strike.
As long as the war was still ongoing, the public remained generally supportive of the government, or at least aware that any kind of overt resistance would only aid the enemy. State propaganda rallied the public for a long-term total war, vowing to carry on the fight until Maverica and Innominada were completely defeated, and this slogan was met with enthusiastic support from the country's young nationalists. In private, however, Menghe's top military officers knew that they lacked the munitions and vehicle reserves to fight for more than four weeks, and when Maverica offered a ceasefire on May 11th, Menghe promptly accepted it.
Under the prospective ceasfire deal, Menghe retained control of Altagracia, which it had taken during the war, and Argentstan retained control of Isla Diamante, which Menghe had taken on its behalf. On land, however, the various combatants agreed to restore Hemithea's prewar borders, even on the Innominadan Peninsula where Argentstan and the Republic of Innominada had major territorial disputes with the People's Republic of Innominada.
It was this peace deal, rather than the war itself, which triggered the largest outpouring of public anger in Menghe. Outwardly, the terms were favorable to Menghe, which gained a long-disputed territory and made no concessions of its own. Yet the restoration of prewar borders and the absence of any political demands against Maverica came as a shock and a disappointment, especially after state propaganda had so enthusiastically drummed up the prospect of a long-term decisive conflict to completely expel the Entente from Hemithea. Adding to these concerns, NF forces had outwardly performed very well in the war's last week, and seemed poised to advance further into EC territory. Menghe's leaders had seemingly traded a massive number of lives, resources, and equipment losses for the capture of a single city, with no long-term shift in the regional balance of power. Nationalists accused the leadership of backing down from a justified war and accepting an unfavorable peace deal; liberals accused the leadership of squandering hundreds of thousands of lives in a pointless war of aggression. Though polar opposites in their interpretation of the war, these two factions were temporarily united in their opposition to the way the government and the Army leadership had handled the conflict. Moreover, now that a state of war was no longer in effect, Menghean citizens felt free to unleash the pent-up anger which they had previously suppressed in the name of wartime unity.
Economic disruptions
A number of neutral countries, including Dayashina, responded to Menghe's preemptive war declaration by imposing targeted sanctions against Menghe, either freezing transactions by individuals linked to the military or blocking the export of dual-use goods and materials. This had a negligible impact on the course of the war itself, as Menghe had already stockpiled enough munitions to sustain a month of fighting and was prepared to mobilize and ration civilian resources to support the war effort, but it did impact home front morale. In particular, the Sunju stock exchange entered a nosedive on April 11th as both domestic and foreign investors pulled money out of the country, fearing either escalatory sanctions or battle damage to their fixed capital.
Government decisions made during the course of the war also disrupted the economy. The Army called up over a million reservists for active military service, pulling them away from their jobs in the civilian sector. In some areas near the coast and the front line, the government also invoked Article 52 of the Constitution to conscript civilians for defense-related labor, including digging trenches and delivering munitions, further cutting into the labor force. Fuel rationing went into effect early in the conflict to guard against the expected loss of oil tankers en route to Menghe, and the rationing remained in effect even after Ummayah tripled the size of the buffer zone protecting the vital overland pipeline through Meridia. All of these factors contributed to a spike in inflation, brought about by shortages, production shortfalls, and a rush to hoard essential supplies. The government attempted to mitigate inflation through temporary price controls, but in May it was revealed that the Central Bank of Menghe had printed significant amounts of money to help finance the war.
Finally, the war also resulted in significant (though not crippling) damage to Menghe's infrastructure. The southwestern corner of the country, which saw the most intense fighting and bombing, sustained the heaviest damage; many expressways and rail lines were cut, and the cities of Hasavyurt and Gwangbo were gutted by fighting. Casualties, spread across the dead, wounded, and missing, ran into the hundreds of thousands, many of them reservists who would not be able to return to work.
Some of these disruptions lightened after the war's end, but the damage was done. The stock market rapidly rebounded after Menghe and Maverica announced a ceasefire deal, and many outside countries rewarded this move by lifting their wartime sanctions, but the shock had already caused serious disruption to Menghe's financial sector. Inflation continued and even accelerated in May and June as the government relaxed price controls and continued printing money to repay war debts. And defense spending was projected to remain well above normal in 2023 and 2024 as Menghe rushed to replace tanks, aircraft, and munitions lost during the conflict. This further contributed to public anger against the government.
Timeline of events
Second Pan-Septentrion War
The Second Pan-Septentrion War broke out on 10 April 2022, when Menghean forces launched a series of coordinated surprise attacks on Entente land and naval assets in and around the South Menghe Sea. Initially, the conflict was overwhelmingly popular with the Menghean public; patriotism was already widespread, the first strike was generally seen as justified, and state propaganda immediately rallied support for the cause.
The war came to an end on May 11th, when Maverica proposed a ceasefire which would restore land borders to the status quo ante bellum. The Menghean government approved the ceasefire deal on the same day, eager to settle the issue before the conflict could drag on beyond the first month. The other Entente member states concluded ceasefires with the Namhae Front in the days that followed, accepting Menghean control over Altagracia and Isla Diamante. Menghe's government was quick to claim victory, and the Namhae Front did exit the war with modest territorial gains. Yet the war's cost in lives, materiel, and damaged civilian infrastructure seemed far out of proportion to the gains, which were negligible on the war's costliest fronts.
2022 Heroes' Square protests
On 13 May 2022, two days after the ceasefire deal, crowds of protesters began moving toward Heroes' Square, the historically important plaza east of the Donggwangsan Palace. Soldiers from the Donggyŏng Capital Brigade, assembled around the square as a pre-emptive measure, responded with force. These troops, part of Menghe's Internal Security Forces, were under strict orders to use non-lethal force only, and did not fire live ammunition, though subsequent investigations revealed that they carried loaded weapons with live ammunition in their vehicles. The violent response did, however, kill at least five protesters: one was struck in the head by a heavy tear gas canister, one was caught under the wheels of an armored personnel carrier, and three were crushed by a stampede in a narrow side street west of the square after mistaking a barrage of rubber bullets for actual gunfire. Many more were injured, some of them seriously, by batons, rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, and the aforementioned stampede.
Cellphone footage of the event was widely shared online, as were text messages detailing the protest events. Censors initially responded by rushing to take down videos of the crackdown and block searches relating to it, but many netizens responded by reuploading footage on sites hosted outside of Menghe, and the sheer volume of posts overwhelmed the authorities. The state's hasty attempt at censorship also intensified public outrage, and on the afternoon of May 14th, state media reversed course by acknowledging five deaths and criticizing the Rapid Response Brigades for their irresponsible behavior.
The incident, which took place on Friday the 13th, soon became known as Bloody Friday, and it became a rallying cry for the protest movement. Protesters returned to the streets of Donggyŏng on the evening of May 14th, but stopped short of the shield walls and barricades set up by police, still wary of the risk of a crackdown.
On May 15th, two days after Bloody Friday, much larger crowds made their way toward Heroes' Square in Donggyŏng. The Donggyŏng Capital Brigade once again resorted to rubber bullets and tear gas, but failed to disperse the protesters, many of whom wore bandanas to protect against tear gas and carried umbrellas to protect against falling projectiles. Overwhelmed by the size and motivation of the crowd, the Internal Security troops pulled back or were overrun, and at around 2:10PM protesters broke into Heroes' Square for the first time. By the end of the day, well over 10,000 protesters had assembled in and around the square, where they set up camp to occupy it for the night.
Over the course of the following week, the protests steadily escalated. Encouraged by the absence of a crackdown, more people joined the demonstration in central Donggyŏng, which fluctuated in size between 8,000 and 60,000 protesters. Smaller protests broke out in other cities around Menghe, where many were met by violence but some succeeded in occupying public spaces. The southern city of Sunju, beset by economic difficulties ever since the closure of the border with Altagracia in 2014, staged especially large demonstrations which moved throughout the city's central neighborhoods. Over the weekend of 21-22 May, Donggyŏng's crowd swelled to over 200,000 protesters, who temporarily succeeded in surrounding the Donggwangsan complex and the National Assembly building; fearing that this was an overly bold measure, protest leaders eventually agreed to leave space for leaders' motorcades to enter and exit.
Though united in their outrage against the government, the protesters were deeply divided ideologically. Young liberals, especially college students at Donggyŏng's top universities, used the protest to air longstanding desires for freedom and democracy. Hardcore nationalists sought to air their more recent anger over the government's acceptance of a less-than-optimal peace deal, with some calling for an immediate resumption of hostilities. Many protest members and supportive bystanders were politically neutral, but had been angered by reports of police brutality and censorship on Bloody Friday. By 22 May, at least seven distinct leadership cells had emerged and were in dialogue with one another, though consensus remained distant.
Speculation about a crackdown
From the outset, Chairman Kim Pyŏng-so adopted a relatively passive response to the protests. He made no public appearances on Bloody Friday, and after state media confirmed five deaths the following day, he issued a brief statement criticizing the conduct of the Internal Security Forces and urging a peaceful resolution. These remarks, more notable for what was not said, contributed to the surge in protest participation on May 15th. Even as Donggwangsan was surrounded, Chairman Kim insisted on conducting regular government business from within the building, concerned that a high-profile evacuation would embolden the movement to the point of toppling the entire regime. He did, however, relocate from his office facing the square to a secure bomb-proof complex in the center of the building.
Marshal Kang Yong-nam, already chafing with other top officials for his handling of the war and well aware that his removal was first among the protesters' demands, called for a forceful crackdown as early as May 14th. He redoubled these calls after protesters occupied Heroes' Square, insisting that only a show of force would restore order and warning that foreign powers would exploit Menghe's vulnerability if the protests continued. Chairman Kim, already impatient with Kang for his handling of the war, rebuffed Kang's demands, suggesting that the leadership instead wait for the summer monsoon rains to intensify and the protesters to lose interest.
Privately, Kang began moving behind the scenes on his own volition, bypassing Kim's authority as Supreme Commander and recalling four mechanized divisions to the largest protest sites: two to Donggyŏng, and two to Sunju. These orders were classified as top secret, and because the Menghean Army was already withdrawing reservist personnel to their home areas and withdrawing damaged vehicles to military factories, their movements did not initially attract attention. On May 26th, however, multiple trains loaded with tanks and armored fighting vehicles were spotted moving eastward through the northern city of Jinyi, on an oversize freight rail route terminating in Donggyŏng. Speculation about a coup or crackdown was already rife on Menghe's internet, which was now inundated by a flood of independent cellphone photos and videos of these military trains. The official government response was garbled. State media initially denied any government intention of reinforcing Donggyŏng with troops and stated that the vehicles were bound for repair depots in the northwest, despite clear indications that the vehicles were bound for the northeast. One Army officer, speaking off the record, stated that an armed crackdown was a justified way to restore order; it remains unclear whether the anonymous officer in question was part of the dispatched force, or commenting independently. On May 27th, a spokesperson for Kim Pyŏng-so's office explained vaguely that the Army had moved troops toward the capital as a "purely defensive measure," a remark which earned widespread mockery and derision online and in the crowd.
Photos and footage of the military trains in Jinyi intensified foreign pressure against Menghe, which had already increased after Bloody Friday. In private, diplomats and high-level contacts from Dayashina, Hallia, and Banbha demanded answers as to how Menghe intended to respond to the protests, and warned of serious consequences if the Menghean Army attempted to clear Heroes' Square by force. When asked at a public press conference how the government would respond to a massacre in Heroes' Square, a spokesperson for the Banbhan government warned that "crackdowns will be met with repercussions," but did not go into detail as to what said repercussions might be. Adding to the initial confusion, many of Menghe's contacts with Hallia, Dayashina, and Banbha ran through either establishment elites aligned with Kim Pyŏng-so or reformists aligned with Mun Chang-ho; officials in both groups had initially reassured foreign contacts that the leadership had no intention of using the Army, and were caught off guard by the arrival of two mechanized divisions outside Donggyŏng, with one Banbhan diplomat commenting several weeks later that his Menghean contact seemed "genuinely caught off guard by the deployment [of troops to Donggyŏng on 27 May], and even nervous."
In private, Mun Chang-ho and Kim Pyŏng-so were equally concerned. Not only had Marshal Kang apparently prepared a military response to civil matters without either of their approval; the deployment of troops closely resembled the leadup to Choe Sŭng-min's Decembrist Revolution, in which troops sent to quell unrest in the capital instead staged a coup. The Donggyŏng Capital Brigade, established and armed to deter exactly this kind of threat, was occupied by crowd control duties and would be unable to fend off a two-pronged military assault on the capital. Both began frantically reaching out to their own contacts in the military and the security apparatus. Kim summoned Kang to Donggwangsan to explain himself; Kang received the summons, but remained 120 kilometers away at the Army headquarters in Dongrŭng, replying that it would not be safe for him to visit Donggwangsan in light of the crowds assembled around it. Mun Chang-ho, who continued working from the Socialist Party's headquarters in the northeastern corner of the Donggwangsan complex, visited the crowd on May 28th to reassure them that the MSP was ideologically opposed to the use of force and would block any efforts to cause violence.
Privately, however, Kang Yong-nam was growing concerned as well. There were already grumbles of dissent from the Army's other top officers, many of whom already chafed with Kang over his interference in their command decisions and his efforts to take sole credit for the Maverican surrender. Kang had also anticipated, incorrectly, that Kim Pyŏng-so would plead for his help if Donggwangsan were surrounded, allowing him to sweep in with the approval of the central leadership while also humiliating the incumbent Chairman. On May 30th, Kang Yong-nam held a secret meeting with Gun Se-yŏng, the longtime Minister of Internal Security and a member of Kang's security faction. At this meeting, Kang Yong-nam requested that the Ministry of Internal Security arrest Mun Chang-ho and charge him with conspiring with dissidents for his visit with protest leaders two days prior. According to his own testimony, Gun Se-yŏng refused on the grounds that such an operation would trigger a backlash from Kim Pyŏng-so, but did not immediately report the conversation. Gun Se-yŏng also stated, per his own testimony, that in his twelve years spent working under Choe Sŭng-min, the former Chairman had consistently urged him to never clear a protest with lethal force.
Kang's dismissal and Kim's resignation
Maj. Gen. Rim Gwang-hwan, 2022-06-06, 10:03AM
The standoff in and around the capital persisted until June 6th. On that day, Major General Rim Gwang-hwan of the 214th Mechanized Division, stationed north of the capital, published a post on his official social media feed announcing that Kang Yong-nam had ordered him to clear Heroes' Square with lethal force and that he had refused. Though Maj. Gen. Rim had only a small following, news of the message rapidly spread throughout social media, even after the original post was taken down by censors. Kang, still in Dongrŭng, relieved Rim of his command, but the Major General's troops defied Kang's order and took up guard positions around the edges of their encampment. Major General Sŏ Hong-gi of the 134th Mechanized Division, stationed south of the capital, issued no public statement, but ignored subsequent orders from Dongrŭng as well. Now furious, Kim Pyŏng-so issued another directive summoning Kang to the capital to explain his actions. After again receiving no response, Kim departed by helicopter to confront Kang in person, leaving Mun Chang-ho in charge of Donggwangsan. Outside, the ranks of the protesters swelled rapidly, as many civilians anticipated that Kang may be relieved of his command.
Upon meeting Kim, Kang Yong-nam vehemently denied ordering a military crackdown, instead claiming that he had only moved troops to Donggyŏng's outskirts as a precaution and to put more options at the leadership's disposal. He accused Rim Gwang-hwan of fabricating the story in an attempt to meddle in factional politics. Gun Se-yŏng backed up Kang's account, but by this point he was eyeing the exits, concerned that Kang might fall from grace and take his allies with him.
Kim Pyŏng-so apparently took Kang at his word, returning to Donggyŏng on June 7th. By this point, the crowds in the capital had grown considerably, and were demanding Kang's resignation. Protesters stopped Kim's motorcade as it approached the north gate of Donggwangsan and demanded to know what had happened in the previous day's meeting with Kang. Apparently unprepared to speak to the public, Kim Pyŏng-so relayed Kang's explanation that Rim Gwang-hwan had fabricated his account and that troops were only positioned around the city "as a precaution." The crowd responded with confusion, and then outrage, pressing closer until Kim's security detail fired tear gas and whisked the Chairman into the gated facility. The hashtag "just a precaution" began trending on social media, insinuating that Kim was planning to use lethal force at a later date; protest chants in Heroes' Square began calling for Kim's resignation as well.
A new revelation shook the country on the morning of June 8th. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an aide in the 134th Mechanized Division south of the capital confirmed that the top brass in his division had in fact been instructed to prepare for military action against the Heroes' Square protesters, and that Kang Yong-nam had personally ordered the division to stand down in the leadup to Kim Pyŏng-so's visit to Dongrŭng on June 6-7. Though the source provided no hard evidence, this was enough to confirm public suspicion of Kang's motives. Some demonstrators carried portraits of Choe Sŭng-min and banners calling on the Party to honor the legacy of the Decembrist Revolution. This turn of events left Kim Pyŏng-so deeply distraught; he remained confined to Donggwangsan's central bunker over the night of June 7-8, issuing no orders.
In Dongrŭng, Kang Yong-nam was also growing desperate. Dissent was growing among the Army's top generals, who increasingly saw Kang as a liability: his chances of one day assuming the post of Chairman were effectively dashed, and if he were to be investigated and found guilty, anyone close to him would be guilty by association. At a secret meeting on June 8th, members the Army's high command agreed to depose Kang and select High General Bang Jin-sun, a celebrated hero of the Second Pan-Septentrion War, as the security faction's new political star. That afternoon, the Military Discipline Inspection Agency arrested Kang Yong-nam on charges of conspiring against the state and people, and released documents confirming that Kang had ordered divisions to the capital without higher approval in order to conduct a lethal crackdown.
Though the announcement did not directly implicate Kim Pyŏng-so, it became yet another humiliation for the Chairman, exposing him as either inept for falling for Kang's plot or complicit in hiding it. All day on June 8th, he grew increasingly distraught and despondent, still refusing to exit the fortified center of Donggwangsan. Late in the evening, Kim Jŏng-min, the Minister of National Defense, arrived at Donggwangsan via helicopter to negotiate some compromise between the three factions. Kim Pyŏng-so, Kim Jŏng-min, and Mun Chang-ho talked behind closed doors until the early hours of the morning.
At 6:22AM on June 9th, Mun Chang-ho appeared on the parade-viewing stand at Donggwangsan to speak to the crowd gathered below. In a brief address, he announced the following changes:
- Acting in his capacity as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Kim Pyŏng-so had formally stripped Kang Yong-nam of the rank of Marshal and authorized a further investigation into his actions.
- Subsequently, Kim Pyŏng-so had agreed to step down from the posts of Chairman of the Supreme Council, General-Secretary of the Socialist Party, and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, in light of his inability to handle national affairs.
- As First Deputy Secretary of the MSP, Mun Chang-ho had assumed the position of General Secretary.
- The position of Chairman of the Supreme Council would remain symbolically empty for the time being, as had been the case after Choe Sŭng-min's death, though Mun Chang-ho would govern the country in his capacity as First Deputy Chairman.
- The position of Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces would go to Kim Jŏng-min, who would also concurrently serve as Minister of National Defense.
- The position of Supreme Commander of the Menghean Army would go to Bang Jin-sun, who would be promoted two levels to the rank of Marshal.
- The Socialist Party would conduct an independent investigation into reports of violence by riot police, including the "Bloody Friday" deaths.
In his speech, Mun Chang-ho attributed the last three weeks' chaos to the flawed institutional underpinnings of the Menghean government, especially at the top level. The current system, he proposed, had been designed to serve the leadership of Choe Sŭng-min, but it relied too heavily on the presence of a skilled and morally upright leader at the helm: Kang Pyŏng-so was clearly unfit to hold all three posts at once, and Mun himself dared not put himself on the same level as a leader of Choe's magnitude. The only solution was to redesign the Menghean system of government to derive its power from democratic, rule-bound institutions, rather than risking everything on the moral character of one man. On this basis, he stated, the Menghean Socialist Party would immediately begin drafting a constitutional reform to deconcentrate the power of top leaders and increase democratic competition, and he invited representatives of the protest movement to come forward and take part in the drafting process.
Mun's remarks were carefully written, and designed to please many audiences. By dismissing Kang and Kim and promising constitutional reforms, Mun presented pro-democracy and anti-militarist protesters with an apparent victory, but he also reassured conservatives and moderates by indicating that the Party would retain a leading role in drafting the new constitution. In his remarks on Choe Sŭng-min, Mun also leveraged the still-lingering influence of Choe's personality cult to discredit any official who tried to rule as Choe had done, without directly calling Choe's ruling style and accomplishments into question. Though he reportedly delivered this speech after a sleepless night of tense negotiation with leaders of the establishment and security factions, subsequently released draft documents and anonymous remarks from peers indicate that Mun had prepared comments along these lines since long before Choe Sŭng-min's death, and was setting a long-anticipated plan into motion.
Constitutional reforms
Mun Chang-ho was similarly well-prepared on the question of how to implement reforms. Since at least 2015, the Center for Governance Research had authorized detailed policy analysis studies into the feasibility of different democratization options, and the ways in which the Menghean Socialist Party could compete effectively in a democratic system. Among the fruits of this research was a ready-made map of single-member electoral districts for the National Assembly, apportioned using data from the 2020 census. While a variety of presidential, semi-presidential, and parliamentary options were considered, Mun Chang-ho and many in the Party establishment favored a parliamentary system, which would avoid direct election of the national executive.
The opposition movement, by contrast, entered at a serious disadvantage. Up until the morning of June 9th, the protesters were united in their demands for Kang Yong-nam's dismissal, Kim Pyŏng-so's resignation, and an investigation of the Internal Security Forces. Now that these three main demands had been granted, the various factions had little in common. The vast majority of protesters were political moderates who had joined the crowd to protest against Kang's alleged crackdown plans, and many of these individuals saw Kang's dismissal and Kim's resignation as victories and left the square. Liberal intellectuals favored more thorough democratic reforms, but they were unable to form a united front with the nationalist youth and ex-soldiers who had joined the movement at its start; these protesters were angered by Mun Chang-ho's apparent seizure of power, and some began calling on the Army to install Marshal Bang Jin-sun as the new leader. Marshal Bang, however, had no interest in destabilizing the country further, and he publicly backed Mun as acting Chairman.
It was only at 10PM on June 9th that the remaining activists in the square settled on nine leaders to represent them in negotiations. Of these, three were liberal reformists, three were radical nationalists, one was a communist, and two were moderates. Unsurprisingly, the subsequent negotiations were unproductive. The protest leaders frequently clashed with one another, at one point coming to blows on June 11th and forcing the negotiations to end early for the day. The MSP's negotiating team, made up of career bureaucrats from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, mainly stalled for time, while Mun Chang-ho spoke with representatives in the National Assembly and gave speeches and press conferences to cement his public standing as the face of Menghe's democratic reforms.
Rather than draft an entirely new constitution, Mun and his supporters in the Menghean Socialist Party decided to heavily amend the existing 1990 Constitution in order to give it a more democratic character. This was partly a pragmatic move intended to speed up the interim reform period, but it was also an important symbolic move, as it signaled that the new system was an evolutionary continuation of Choe Sŭng-min's Socialist Republic of Menghe rather than an entirely new regime. Drawing on draft language prepared by the Center for Governance Research, the MSP settled on the following major changes:
- Amendment 32-1: Abolishes the Supreme Council of Menghe, the position of Chairman of the Supreme Council, and the positions of First Deputy Chairman and Deputy Chairman.
- Amendment 32-2: Abolishes the position of Speaker of the National Assembly.
- Amendment 32-3: Establishes the post of Prime Minister, who is elected by representatives to the National Assembly from among their ranks.
- Amendment 32-4: Establishes the State Council of Menghe as Menghe's cabinet, with similar powers to the Supreme Council, and permits outside appointments of cabinet members (i.e., non-members of the National Assembly).
- Amendment 32-5: Replaces the province-level multi-member districts of the previous electoral system with 253 single-member districts (including three in newly-acquired Altagracia) and 25 seats which are awarded on a party-list basis to the largest political party in the Assembly. Also sets first-past-the-post voting rules for each of these districts.
- Amendment 32-6: Applies similar changes to all provincial assemblies, including a 10% seat reservation for the plurality party.
- Amendment 32-7: Provides for the direct election of County heads, Prefecture heads, and Provincial governors, while maintaining the existence of county-level advisory councils and elevted village-level leaders.
- Amendment 32-8: Officially recognizes the right of citizens to form independent opposition parties and run in elections, provided that said parties and candidates meet requirements set by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
- Amendment 32-9: Rewords all relevant articles in Chapter 1 of the Constitution to omit specific references to the Menghean Socialist Party, no longer enshrining it in law as Menghe's sole legitimate political authority.
- Amendment 32-10: Adds a paragraph to the Preamble vaguely accusing Choe's successors of ideological errors and recognizing the success of the democracy movement.
- Amendment 32-11: Abolishes the position of Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, instead recognizing the Prime Minister as commander-in-chief.
- Amendment 32-12: Prohibits active-duty military personnel from holding the posts of Minister of National Defense and Prime Minister. This was the first time since 1964 that Menghe had placed its armed forces under full civilian oversight.
- Amendment 32-13: Amends the amendment process so that the Constitution can be modified by a 2/3 majority in the National Assembly, rather than a 3/4 majority as originally required.
The speed with which the National Assembly produced a list of draft amendments caught both domestic and international observers by surprise, leading many to speculate that Mun Chang-ho intended to push through the reforms in time for the nationwide elections on July 14th. With the deadline to register as a candidate falling on June 23rd, this would have left almost no time for any side to plan and organize. Faced with growing popular calls for a longer transition period, and internal complaints from the Ministry of Civil Affairs that the national election board would need more preparation time ahead of the nationwide redistricting, Mun announced on June 20th that the July 2022 elections would go ahead as planned: citizens would elect delegates to the Social Consultative Conferences, but not to the National Assembly, as 2022 was not a National Assembly election year.
Still hoping to exploit the incumbent MSP's electoral advantage, Mun Chang-ho continued pushing the MSP's National Assembly delegates to speed up the drafting process. Mun had hoped to hold a vote on the new constitution on 2 August 2022, the 121st anniversary of the founding of the Federative Republic of Menghe, but independent representatives and conservative MSP members prolonged debate, with the actual vote taking place on August 11th. On that day, Amendments 32-1 through 32-13 were adopted in slightly modified form, along with a clause 32-14 specifying that the changes would be sequentially introduced between August 26th, the opening of registration for new National Assembly and local executive candidates, and October 15th, two weeks after a special election, when the first newly-elected National Assembly would convene and elect a Prime Minister.
2022 National Assembly elections
On 1 October 2022, Menghean voters went to the polls for a special election of delegates to the National Assembly. This was the first Menghean election to follow the amended constitutional election rules: citizens were permitted to form their own parties, and representatives would be elected to single-seat districts, with citizens marking a name on a ballot to choose their representative.
Even with the delays to the constitutional reform process, the expedited campaign schedule left little time for preparation. Registration for new candidates was only open from August 26th to September 9th, and as in previous Menghean elections, official campaigning was restricted to the two weeks before the election and was heavily regulated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Moreover, while the Constitution gave citizens the right to form new parties, it also gave the Ministry of Civil Affairs the power to regulate the eligibility of parties. The MoCA's election regulations, published on 22 August 2022, included the following restrictions:
- Citizens who have been convicted of a felony, or under felony investigation, may not run for political office, unless pardoned by the Prime Minister (or outgoing First Deputy Chairman).
- Citizens running for political office must have resided in Menghe continuously for the last 10 years, with no continuous interruptions longer than two months.
- Individuals who advocate for secessionism, ethnic hatred, theocracy, or civil violence may be disqualified from running.
- In order to be officially recognized by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and have its name appear on ballots, a political party must run candidates in at least three of Menghe's greater administrative regions, including at least one candidate in an Autonomous Province.
While outwardly neutral, these regulations gave the incumbent administration broad leeway to disqualify candidates at will, either by accusing them of expressing overly radical remarks or by leveling felony charges against them on an ostensibly unrelated issue. The residency requirement also barred self-exiled dissidents who had returned to Menghe after 2012 and individuals living part-time outside the country. The requirement to register candidates in different parts of the country, and others like it, made it difficult for minor parties to enter the playing field, though individuals from disqualified parties could still run as independents without institutionally recognized party support. The two-week campaigning period also favored the MSP: though MSP candidates largely complied with this regulation, they received free publicity from state media, as news reports on candidates were excluded from the campaigning restrictions.
The Menghean government went to great lengths to ensure that the election itself was fair and competitive. International election observers from Banbha and Dayashina were invited to monitor polling stations, and were allowed to conduct a parallel vote tabulation based on a random sample of polling stations. Apart from the MSP's large campaigning advantage, the election was generally considered clean: there were no reports of intimidation at polling stations, and the official vote totals were consistent with the parallel vote sample.
The Menghean Socialist Party won 56.8% of all votes for National Assembly candidates, a significant decline compared to the 2019 general election, in which it won 68.2% of the popular vote. But because of the switch to single-member districts rather than province-level proportional representation, this vote total translated over into 195 out of 253 single-member National Assembly seats, plus all 25 plurality-list seats, for a total of 220 seats or 79.1% of the National Assembly. This was the largest MSP National Assembly majority since the elections of 1999, which were widely regarded as sham elections but which did follow province-level PR seat allocation. The Menghean Social-Democratic Party (MSDP) also coordinated with the MSP before the election to consolidate the pro-regime vote: in most districts, the MSDP did not run candidates against the MSP, but in districts where the MSP was polling especially poorly, the MSDP ran a candidate and the MSP did not. The MSDP's vote share and seat share fell considerably since past elections, when it was the preferred party for the liberal opposition, but it did enter into coalition with the MSP; the Menghean Labor Party did not. As the incumbent General-Secretary of the MSP and the de facto leader of the regime, Mun Chang-ho was elected Prime Minister when the 2022 National Assembly first convened on October 14th.
Other factors behind the MSP's landslide National Assembly victory included the ideological and organizational fragmentation of the opposition, which split the anti-MSP vote in nearly all districts, making it hard for any individual opposition candidate to gain a plurality. The opposition candidates who did gain entry to the 2022 National Assembly came from a wide array of ideological backgrounds, including liberals, libertarians, nationalists, and reactionary communists, as well as a large number of independents.
Opposition candidates performed much better in local elections, where they were able to exploit resentment against corrupt MSP incumbents and coordinate more effectively within particular provinces. The MSP performed especially poorly in Sunju's municipal assembly and narrowly held onto the governorship and provincial assembly in South Chŏllo; it also performed poorly in Girim and Gangwŏn, though due to the fragmentation of the opposition, it managed to win gubernatorial offices in these provinces as well. City and county elections saw the greatest successes for opposition and independent candidates, but under Menghe's centralized system of government, that left a great deal of policymaking power in the hands of the MSP.