 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 80.65% ( 1.24pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||
 Results by provincial-level divisions | |||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||
Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 18 December 1997. The result was a victory for opposition candidate Kim Dae-jung, who won with 40.3 percent of the vote. [1] When he took office in 1998, it marked the first time in Korean history that the ruling party peacefully transferred power to the opposition party.
The NCNP National Convention was held on 19 May at Olympic Gymnastics Arena. Kim Dae-jung, a former 6-term lawmaker from South Jeolla, was nominated for president, defeating Chyung Dai-chul, a former four-term lawmaker from Seoul. [2]
| Candidate | Delegates | % |
|---|---|---|
| Kim Dae-jung | 3,223 | 78.04 |
| Chyung Dai-chul | 907 | 21.96 |
| Total | 4,130 | 100.00 |
| Valid votes | 4,130 | 99.35 |
| Invalid/blank votes | 27 | 0.65 |
| Total votes | 4,157 | 100.00 |
The ruling New Korea Party's presidential nominating convention took place on 21 July at Olympic Gymnastics Arena, during which former Prime Minister Lee Hoi-chang defeated former Gyeonggi governor Lee In-je after two rounds of voting and became the party's nominee. [3]
| Candidate | First round | Second round | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delegates | % | Delegates | % | |
| Lee Hoi-chang | 4,963 | 41.13 | 6,922 | 59.96 |
| Lee In-je | 1,776 | 14.72 | 4,622 | 40.04 |
| Lee Han-dong | 1,771 | 14.68 | ||
| Kim Deok-ryong | 1,674 | 13.87 | ||
| Lee Soo-sung | 1,648 | 13.66 | ||
| Choi Byung-ryul | 236 | 1.96 | ||
| Total | 12,068 | 100.00 | 11,544 | 100.00 |
The ULD National Convention held on 24 June at Olympic Gymnastics Arena overwhelmingly nominated 8-term lawmaker Kim Jong-pil from South Chungcheong for president. [4]
| Candidate | Delegates | % |
|---|---|---|
| Kim Jong-pil | 2,575 | 82.29 |
| Han Young-soo | 554 | 17.71 |
| Total | 3,129 | 100.00 |
On 11 September, the Democratic Party, once the premier opposition to the New Koreans but a fringe party ever since the defection of Kim Dae-jung's faction in 1995, nominated Seoul mayor Cho Soon for president. [5]
On 4 November, former NKP politicians unhappy with Lee Hoi-chang founded the New National Party and nominated Lee In-je for president. This was after the scandal regarding Lee Hoi-chang's sons being excused from the military service hit the news cycle and brought Lee's popularity down. [6]
Early polls showed Lee Hoi-chang leading Kim Dae-jung by as much as 30 percentage points.
Lee Hoi-chang's lead was lost when press reports emerged that Lee’s two sons had evaded military conscription by shedding weight before their physical examinations. The South Korean public tends to be intolerant towards men who attempt to evade mandatory military service or receive special treatment. Lee In-je then launched his own bid for the presidency, claiming that Lee Hoi-chang could not win the election and stood for a generational shift in South Korean politics as he was 20 years younger than any candidate in the race. These developments led to Kim leading in the polls by a slender margin.
The election also took place in the context of the IMF crisis where South Korea was forced to accept an IMF bailout on 3 December amidst an economic crash.
Kim Dae-jung, or "D.J." and Kim Jong-pil, or "J.P." agreed on 3 November to form an alliance against their common enemy, Lee Hoi-chang. In this agreement, JP announced to withdraw his bid for president to endorse DJ, and in turn DJ would appoint JP as the prime minister once elected president. The two Kims also agreed to revise the Constitution after the election from presidential system to parliamentary system, and the NCNP and ULD would cooperate on different issues as a coalition government. Kim Dae-jung shocked his supporters with this move as Kim Jong-pil prominently served as prime minister under the Park Chung-hee authoritarian regime of the 1960s and 70s to join his ticket even though Kim was targeted by the Park regime as a political dissident, surviving government assassination attempts and imprisonment.
On the other hand, needing a breakthrough as Kim Dae-jung's popularity soared, Lee Hoi-chang and Cho Soon also agreed to combine forces. On 21 November, the New Korea Party and Democratic Party merged into one party, and was founded as the Grand National Party. Cho Soon was made the chairman of the party, and Lee Hoi-chang the candidate for president.
The election was also the first to feature election debates between the candidates.
With a winning margin of 1.52%, the 1997 presidential elections were the closest until the 2022 presidential elections. [7]
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kim Dae-jung | National Congress for New Politics | 10,326,275 | 40.27 | |
| Lee Hoi-chang | Grand National Party | 9,935,718 | 38.75 | |
| Lee In-je | New National Party | 4,925,591 | 19.21 | |
| Kwon Young-ghil | People's Victory for 21st Century | 306,026 | 1.19 | |
| Shin Jeong Yil | Unified Korea Party | 61,056 | 0.24 | |
| Kim Han-sik | Honest Politics Unite | 48,717 | 0.19 | |
| Huh Kyung-young | Republican Party | 39,055 | 0.15 | |
| Total | 25,642,438 | 100.00 | ||
| Valid votes | 25,642,438 | 98.46 | ||
| Invalid/blank votes | 400,195 | 1.54 | ||
| Total votes | 26,042,633 | 100.00 | ||
| Registered voters/turnout | 32,290,416 | 80.65 | ||
| Source: Nohlen et al. | ||||
| regions · provinces · cities |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kim Dae-jung NCNP | Lee Hoi-chang GNP | Lee In-je NNP | ||
| Sudogwon | Seoul | 44.9% | 40.9% | 12.8% |
| Incheon | 38.5% | 36.4% | 23.0% | |
| Gyeonggi | 39.3% | 35.5% | 23.6% | |
| Gangwon | 23.8% | 43.2% | 30.9% | |
| Chungcheong | Daejeon | 45.0% | 29.2% | 24.1% |
| Chungcheongbuk | 37.4% | 30.8% | 29.4% | |
| Chungcheongnam | 48.3% | 23.5% | 26.1% | |
| Honam (Jeolla) | Gwangju | 97.3% | 1.3% | 0.7% |
| Jeollabuk | 92.3% | 4.5% | 2.1% | |
| Jeollanam | 94.6% | 3.2% | 1.4% | |
| Yeongnam (Gyeongsang) | Busan | 15.3% | 53.3% | 29.8% |
| Ulsan | 15.4% | 51.4% | 26.7% | |
| Daegu | 12.5% | 72.7% | 13.1% | |
| Gyeongsangbuk | 13.7% | 61.9% | 21.8% | |
| Gyeongsangnam | 11.0% | 55.1% | 31.3% | |
| Jeju | 40.6% | 36.6% | 20.5% | |
Kim Dae-jung was a South Korean politician and activist who served as the 8th president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003.
The United Liberal Democrats was a right-wing conservative political party in South Korea, whose support mostly came from the North Chungcheong and South Chungcheong regions. The short Korean name is Jaminryeon.
Kim Jong-pil, also known colloquially as JP, was a South Korean politician and the founder/first director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. He served as Prime Minister twice, from 1971 to 1975 during the presidency of Park Chung Hee (1961–1979) and from 1998 to 2000 during the presidency of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2003). He was a nine-term National Assembly member.
Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 19 December 2002. The result was a victory for Roh Moo-Hyun of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party, who defeated Lee Hoi-chang of the Grand National Party by just over half a million votes.
Lee Hoi-chang is a South Korean politician and lawyer who served as the 26th Prime Minister of South Korea from 1993 to 1994. He was a presidential candidate in the 15th, 16th and 17th presidential elections of South Korea. Prior to his presidential campaigns, Lee served as Supreme Court Justice of the Supreme Court of Korea.
Chung Mong-joon or Chung Mong Joon is a South Korean businessman and politician. He is the sixth son of Chung Ju-yung, founder of Hyundai, the second-largest South Korean chaebol before its breakup in 2003. He remains the controlling shareholder of a Hyundai offshoot, Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, parent of the world's largest shipbuilding company. He is also the chairman of the board of the University of Ulsan and Ulsan College in Ulsan, South Korea. He is the founder and the honorary chairman of The Asan Institute for Policy Studies. He was vicepresident of FIFA and president of the South Korean football association.
Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 19 December 2007. The election was won by Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, returning conservatives to the Blue House for the first time in ten years. Lee defeated Grand Unified Democratic New Party nominee Chung Dong-young and independent Lee Hoi-chang by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, the largest since direct elections were reintroduced in 1987. It also marked the first time a president-elect in Korea was under investigation by a prosecutor. Voter turnout was 63.0%, an all-time low according to the National Election Commission.
Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 16 December 1987. They marked the establishment of the Sixth Republic, as well as the end of the authoritarian rule that had prevailed in the country for all but one year since its founding in 1948. They were the first direct presidential elections since 1971, as presidents had been indirectly elected by an electoral college dominated by the governing party in the intervening period.
Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 18 December 1992, the second democratic presidential elections since the end of military rule in 1987. Voter turnout was 81.9%.
Two-stage presidential elections were held in South Korea in February 1981. An electoral college was elected on 11 February, which in turn elected the president on 25 February. They were the last indirect presidential elections controlled by the government of Chun Doo-hwan under the new 1980 constitution. Chun was re-elected with 90% of the electoral college vote.
Early presidential elections were held in South Korea on 9 May 2017 following the impeachment and removal of Park Geun-hye. The elections were conducted in a single round, on a first-past-the-post basis, and had originally been scheduled for 20 December 2017. However, they were brought forward after the decision of the Constitutional Court on 10 March 2017 to uphold the National Assembly's impeachment of Park. Following procedures set out in the Constitution of South Korea, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn succeeded Park as the acting president. After Park was removed from office by the Constitutional Court's ruling, acting president Hwang announced he would not run for a term in his own right.
Lee In-je is a South Korean politician and a former judge.
Confession is a 2019 South Korean television series starring Lee Jun-ho, Yoo Jae-myung and Shin Hyun-been. It aired on tvN from March 23 to May 12, 2019.
Sul Hoon is a South Korean activist and politician currently serving as a member of National Assembly in Wonmi District's 2nd constituency of Bucheon. He is also one of the Vice presidents in Democratic Party of Korea since August 2018.
The Alliance of DJP (Korean: DJP연합) was a big tent political alliance formed by the National Congress for New Politics (NCNP) and the United Liberal Democrats (ULD). It was named after the initials of the Chairmen of both parties ― Kim Dae-jung (DJ) of the NCNP and Kim Jong-pil (JP) of the ULD. It is rarely called as Alliance of DJT (DJT연합) including Park Tae-joon (TJ) who also joined the alliance.
Lee Ki-taek was a South Korean politician and parliamentarian.
The Democratic Party was a political party of South Korea from 1995 to 1997. Formerly named United Democratic Party, it was renamed in 1996.
Free Korea 21 was a conservative political party in South Korea led by Choi Jong-ho and Kim Kyung-se.
Kingmaker is a 2022 South Korean political drama film, written and directed by Byun Sung-hyun for Seed Film and starring Sol Kyung-gu, Lee Sun-kyun and Yoo Jae-myung. It was scheduled to be theatrically released on December 29, 2021, but due to rapid increase in COVID-19 pandemic it was released on January 26, 2022, to coincide with Korean New Year holidays. The film was also officially invited in competition section at the 24th Udine Far East Film Festival held from April 22 to 30, 2022.
| Presidential elections | |
|---|---|
| Legislative elections | |
| Local elections | |
| By-elections | |
| Referendums | |
