An End of Innocence.(Roh Moo Hyun)

Twenty visitors is all the home of Syngman Rhee, South Korea's first president, rates on an average day. The few who explore the traditional courtyard residence, set beneath a hillside in downtown Seoul, find relics of a young man's heroic anticolonial activism. His degrees from Harvard and Princeton adorn the study, not far from the room where the republic he struggled to establish held its inaugural cabinet meeting in 1948. Yet Rhee's early achievements have been obscured by his legacy as a president who betrayed his ideals, clung to power and died in lonely exile. He is the first in a line of ignominious South Korean leaders that extends, now, to the present.

The newest member of this rogues' gallery is none other than President Roh Moo Hyun. Elected barely a year ago on his promise to transform national politics, the 56-year-old former human-rights lawyer has proved disappointingly familiar in office. In addition to his practical failings--a greenhorn cabinet, poor management of the economy and flip-flops on key policy issues--he has become embroiled in a widening campaign-funding scandal that's ruined his clean-hands reputation. On the defensive, Roh recently vowed: "I am willing to retire from politics if our illegal election-campaign money exceeded one tenth of that for the [opposition] Grand National Party." His declaration shocked supporters who once believed their champion above condoning criminal behavior, petty or otherwise.

Just three months before National Assembly elections seen as a mandate on his shaky administration, Roh's future looks bleak. His support base has virtually disintegrated. The remnants reside in the small, newly established Woori Party, which split from the then ruling Millennium Democrats in November and now controls just 15 percent of the Legislature. Roh's own approval rating has fallen from 80 percent at its zenith eight months ago to around 27 percent today. Bitter ex-supporters are legion. "Roh promised that he could stop Korea's money politics," says Hwang Tae Young, a 33-year-old banker. "I now regret that I believed him."

Roh is a Rhee in the making. And his fall is especially damaging because he had energized a young electorate that, dismayed by the scandals of his predecessors, had threatened to withdraw from politics altogether. Just last week it was reported that a businessman with long ties to Roh had told prosecutors that he personally handed the candidate's aide $25,000 to help fund his 2002 campaign. Such news doesn't sit well with the throngs of youngsters who heeded Roh's call to "break the old political paradigm" by voting him into office. "They don't jump on the bandwagon anymore," says Kim Woosang, a political scientist at Yonsei University in Seoul. "Our situation is terrible, and the students, like all of us, are very tired."

It's no secret that every modern Korean presidency has ended either in death or disgrace. So why, cynics might ask, should Roh's be any different? Rhee, for example, fell in a popular uprising and died in exile in Hawaii. Strongman Park Chung Hee's 18-year reign ended with a bullet from his own spy chief. Presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, both former generals, were jailed for mutiny after leaving office, while Presidents Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung, both former dissidents, had sons ...