S. Korea May Delay Altering Charter Until 1989

President Chun Doo Hwan intends to muzzle constitutional debate in Parliament and to keep the present electoral college system for choosing his successor next year, officials of his party indicated Saturday.

An official of Chun’s Democratic Justice Party, speaking on condition that he not be identified, said: “Our parliamentary-cabinet system is the bottom line and uncompromising. If we cannot put it through, all constitutional debate should be shelved until 1989.”

The ruling party official said Chun’s government would probably announce soon a national referendum to freeze constitutional debate until after the Olympic Games, scheduled in Seoul for Sept. 17-Oct. 2, 1988.

Dissident Warns of Unrest

Dissident leader Kim Dae Jung, now under house arrest, warned that Koreans would fiercely resist any move to keep the present system beyond next year.

“I think they (the government) will stick to the present constitution and, actually, that has been their ulterior intention,” Kim told foreign news reporters, speaking over the fence of his house.

The military-dominated government and the opposition have been locked in fierce debate for months over what form of government the country should have after Chun’s seven-year term ends next February.

Chun’s party wants a parliamentary form of government, in which the majority party chooses the chief executive. The Democratic Justice Party has 147 of the 276 seats in the National Assembly.

Demand Direct Elections

The opposition demands direct presidential elections, saying the electoral college system favors the party in power.

Roh Tae Woo, chairman of the ruling party, said Saturday, “The chances of revising the constitution through consensus have become remote.”

Roh and other party officials said that while postponing constitutional debate, Chun would carry out democratic reforms, such as increasing local autonomy, allowing greater press freedom and releasing many of the 2,000 people jailed for anti-government activity.

Chun sought last year to postpone any political liberalization until after the Olympics. But public pressure, including an explosion of student demonstrations, forced him last May to agree to negotiations between his party and the opposition on constitutional revision.

Opposition Party Split

The gulf between Chun’s party and the opposition widened last week when Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam, South Korea’s two best-known dissidents, broke away from the country’s largest opposition group, the New Korea Democratic Party.

The two Kims intend to create a new anti-government party that would fight to change the constitution so presidents will be elected directly. More than 70 of the New Korea Democratic Party’s 90 National Assembly members joined the Kims, leaving the old opposition party no more than a splinter group.

Roh, widely considered a possible successor to Chun, warned that his party will deal sternly with the newly emerging opposition. He declined to be specific.

Confined to His House

About 600 police in plainclothes and fatigue uniforms kept Kim Dae Jung confined to his house Saturday for the fourth straight day.

Kim, a former presidential candidate, is under a suspended 20-year term on a 1980 sedition conviction and has frequently been confined to home since he returned in 1985 from self-imposed exile in the United States.