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| Turnout | 73.5% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Map of margin of victory by constituency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Gilbert Islands held its first national election to choose a chief minister on 17 March 1978. Opposition leader Ieremia Tabai won with 55.6% of the vote, following a voter turnout of 73.5%. The election for chief minister came after the parliamentary election of the same year and the new parliament's unanimous vote to replace the appointed chief minister with one that was popularly elected.
Parliament voted to determine which four candidates would be on the ballot, choosing Taomati Iuta, Babera Kirata, Ieremia Tabai, and Roniti Teiwaki. The previous chief minister, Naboua Ratieta, was unpopular in the new parliament, so its members coordinated to assure that he was not selected for the ballot. The four candidates on the ballot were allies, so they agreed that the two lesser-known candidates would campaign to introduce themselves to voters while the other two would not.
Following Tabai's victory, he led the country's independence process and the position of chief minister was renamed President of Kiribati. Tabai was re-elected in the 1982, 1983, and 1987 elections. The 1987 election was disputed because it was unclear whether the 1978 election counted toward Tabai's term limit.