1963 South Korean presidential election
15 October 1963
 
Nominee Park Chung Hee Yun Posun
Party Democratic Republican Civil Rule
Popular vote 4,702,640 4,546,614
Percentage 46.65% 45.10%
Map of pluralities won in provinces and cities:

■ – Park Chung Hee

■ – Yun Posun
President before election

Park Chung Hee (acting)
Democratic Republican

 Elected President

Park Chung Hee
Democratic Republican

Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 15 October 1963.[1] They were the first elections since the 1961 May Coup, and the first during the Third Republic. The result was a narrow victory for the acting incumbent and leader of the governing military Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, Park Chung Hee, who won 46.6% of the vote, securing a transition to civilian rule under his Democratic Republican Party. Voter turnout was 85.0%.[2][3]

The elections were marked by a number of irregularities.[4]

Background

General Park Chung Hee, who had led the military government of South Korea since his coup in 1961, agreed to return the power to civil politicians on 8 April 1963, at the same time as announcing he would run for the presidency of the new civilian government. This was after he announced his plans to extend the military rule for another four years, to which United States reacted by threatening to cease all economic aid.

Nominations

Military

The military formed the Democratic Republican Party in February, and Park Chung Hee, who had officially retired from military service the day before, accepted DRP nomination for president in October.

On 3 September, members of the military that were critical of Park's dictatorial behaviour split and formed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), nominating former Chief of Staff of the Army and former interim prime minister Song Yo-chan for president. Members of the party were oppressed by the government for doing this. Song later withdrew and endorsed Yun Posun.

Civilian

Civilian politicians were deeply divided into multiple parties rather than unifying against Park. On 14 May, Former President Yun Posun and his followers founded the Civil Rule Party (CRP), which nominated Yun as its presidential candidate. Also claiming to represent the civilian politicians was the New Politics Party (NPP), which nominated former Prime Minister Heo Jeong as its candidate.

When it became clear that Park would win easily if both candidates ran, Yun suggested that the civilians unite under one party, which the NPP agreed to. The People's Party (PP) was officially founded in September, uniting the CRP, NPP and Democratic Friendship Party of former Prime Minister Lee Beom-seok. However, after failing to reach an agreement on whether to nominate Yun or Heo for president, on 13 September, the Civil Rule Party split from the PP and officially re-nominated Yun for president. The factions of Heo and Lee, which remained in the PP, nominated Heo.

On 2 October, Heo withdrew his bid for presidency and endorsed Yun, hoping to help defeat Park.[5][6]

Results

CandidatePartyVotes%
Park Chung HeeDemocratic Republican Party4,702,64046.65
Yun PosunCivil Rule Party4,546,61445.10
Oh Chaeo-yongIndependent408,6644.05
Byeon Yeong-taeRighteous Citizens Party224,4432.23
Ching I-sokNew Development Party198,8371.97
Total10,081,198100.00
Valid votes10,081,19891.35
Invalid/blank votes954,9778.65
Total votes11,036,175100.00
Registered voters/turnout12,985,05184.99
Source: Nohlen et al.

By province

Province or city Park Chung Hee Yun Posun Oh Jae-young Byun Young-tae Jang I-seok Total
Votes  % Votes  % Votes  % Votes  % Votes  %
Seoul 371,627 (30.1%) 802,052 (65.1%) 20,634 (1.6%) 26,728 (2.2%) 10,537 (0.9%) 1,231,578
Gyeonggi 384,764 (33.1%) 661,984 (56.9%) 54,770 (4.7%) 34,775 (3.0%) 27,554 (2.4%) 1,163,847
Gangwon 296,711 (40.0%) 368,092 (49.1%) 35,568 (4.7%) 24,924 (3.3%) 24,528 (3.3%) 749,823
Chungnam 405,077 (40.8%) 490,663 (49.4%) 47,364 (4.8%) 26,639 (2.7%) 23,359 (2.4%) 993,102
Chungbuk 202,789 (39.8%) 249,397 (48.9%) 26,911 (5.3%) 15,699 (3.1%) 14,971 (2.9%) 509,767
Jeonnam 765,712 (57.2%) 480,800 (35.9%) 51,714 (3.9%) 17,312 (1.3%) 22,604 (1.7%) 1,338,142
Jeonbuk 408,556 (49.4%) 343,171 (41.5%) 27,906 (3.4%) 18,617 (2.3%) 18,223 (2.2%) 826,473
Busan 242,779 (48.2%) 239,038 (47.5%) 11,214 (2.2%) 7,106 (1.4%) 3,419 (0.7%) 503,601
Gyeongnam 706,079 (61.7%) 341,971 (29.9%) 60,645 (5.3%) 19,323 (1.7%) 26,014 (2.3%) 1,144,032
Gyeongbuk 837,124 (55.6%) 543,392 (36.1%) 58,079 (3.9%) 31,113 (2.1%) 34,622 (2.3%) 1,504,330
Jeju 81,422 (70.0%) 26,009 (22.3%) 3,859 (3.3%) 2,207 (1.9%) 3,006 (2.6%) 116,503

References

  1. ↑ Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II, p420 ISBN 0-19-924959-8
  2. ↑ Nohlen et al., p464
  3. ↑ "Park Declared Winner In Korea" The Miami News, 19 October 1963, p8A
  4. ↑ Kim, Byung-Kook (2011). The Park Chung Hee Era. Harvard University Press. pp. 353–354. ISBN 978-0674061064.
  5. ↑ 이윤섭 (2012-07-31). 박정희 정권의 시작과 종말 1 (in Korean). ebookspub(이북스펍). ISBN 9788997293094.
  6. ↑ "신정당(新政黨) - 한국민족문화대백과사전". encykorea.aks.ac.kr (in Korean). Retrieved 2018-04-21.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.