Patterns in the 1967 Korean Elections

Abstract

W HEN THE KOREAN VOmTS chose their President and National Assembly members in i967, they were participating in the second election which was held under the constitution of the Third Republic of Korea. The presidential election was held on May 3 and the National Assembly election on June 8. Twenty years of political struggle preceded these elections in which the Korean voters chose their sixth President and seventh National Assembly. Liberation from Japanese control in 1945 meant foreign military occupation by the U.S. Armed Forces south of the 38th parallel and the Red Army of the Soviet Union in the north. It also meant the division of the peninsula and the establishment of implacably opposed governments in the north and south. The outbreak of the Korean war in I950 was an outcome of that division and the trauma of independence for the South Korean Republic is still apparent in its general political instability. Since independence the country has had three republics and three constitutions. The autocratic rule of the First Republic of Syngman Rhee was toppled by the student rebels who protested the rigged election in ig60. In i96i, the Second Republic of Chang Myon and Yun Po-son, which had ruled for about a year, was overthrown by a military coup. For about three years thereafter, the country was under the rule of military junta and in i963 the Korean voters approved a junta-sponsored constitution. In the subsequent elections for President and members of the National Assembly, Pak Chong-hi who headed the junta government was elected President, and his Democratic-Republican Party (DRP) won a majority of the seats in the National Assembly.' This article analyses the i967 elections. What is the meaning of the landslide victory for the government party in these elections? (See Tables I and II.) Is there a discernible pattern of political development in Korea ?2 What