A campaign truck of the Democratic Party carrying the slogan "It's Hard to Make a Living! Let's Change!" during the third presidential election campaign in 1956.

About 5,000 citizens rushed to a seminar on a constitutional amendment bill in Myeong-dong, Seoul on Oct. 5, 1954 under the sponsorship of the Chosun Ilbo, which had already stated its opposition to lifting the limit on the number of times the first president can be re-elected.

In September the same year, the ruling Liberal Party introduced a constitutional amendment designed to lift any curb on the number of times the first president could be elected, paving the way for Syngman Rhee to become president-for-life. Seething public resentment of the amendment culminated at the seminar.

In the vote on Nov. 27, 1954, the bill was declared defeated when it garnered 135 of the total of 203 votes -- one short of the required two-thirds majority. But two days later, vice speaker Choi Sun-ju declared two-thirds of 203 could be “rounded off” to 135, so the constitutional amendment bill was passed.

The procedure left an indelible stain on the country's constitutional history. Opponents organized a constitutional protection society, on which they founded the Democratic Party, the largest opposition party, in 1955.

The third presidential election in 1956, then, was the second by popular vote in the republic's history, but the first of its kind since the ceasefire. Democratic Party candidate Shin Ik-hui put forth the famous slogan, "It's Hard to Make a Living! Let's Change!", which is still heard during anti-government rallies, to challenge Syngman Rhee.

The ruling Liberal Party countered this with its own slogan "No Change Would Work!" Some 300,000 dictatorship-weary voters flocked to the shore of the Han River to listen to Shin's speech on May 3, 1956.

But two days later, on May 5, Shin died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the height of electioneering in a train bound for the Jeolla provinces. In the election on May 15, Shin mustered 80,000 posthumous, and therefore invalid, votes more than Syngman Rhee in Seoul alone. As a result, Rhee, who was then 81, was re-elected. But Chang Myon of the Democratic Party defeated Lee Gi-bung of the Liberal Party in the vice presidential race, opening the way for a "cohabitation" government.

(englishnews@chosun.com )