1981 South Korean legislative election

1981 South Korean legislative election

← 1978 25 March 1981 1985 →

All 276 seats in the National Assembly
139 seats needed for a majority
Turnout77.74% (Increase 0.66pp)
  Majority party Minority party
 
Leader Chun Doo-hwan Yu Chi-song
Party Democratic Justice Democratic Korea
Seats won 151 81
Popular vote 5,776,624 3,495,829
Percentage 35.64% 21.57%

  Third party Fourth party
 
Leader Kim Jong-cheol
Party National Civil Rights
Seats won 25 2
Popular vote 2,147,293 1,088,847
Percentage 13.25% 6.72%

Speaker before election

Dissolution of parliament

Elected Speaker

Chung Rae-hyuk
Democratic Justice

Legislative elections were held in South Korea on 25 March 1981.[1]

The result was a victory for the Democratic Justice Party, which won 151 of the 276 seats in the National Assembly. Voter turnout was 77.7%.

The election was held under the influence of Coup d'état of 1979 and 1980. Major opposition political figures like Kim Young-sam were barred from running. Kim Dae-jung was arrested on May 17, 1980, and was sentenced to death on a of "inciting rebellion". Even the Democratic Republican Party of the late president Park Chung-hee was forcibly dissolved, and major figures like Kim Jong-pil was barred from running.

The election, while ostensibly a multi-party election, is widely considered to have been a fraudulent one, with supposed "opposition" politicians being heavily vetted by the Agency for National Security Planning and the South Korean Army Security Command.

  1. ^ Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II, p420 ISBN 0-19-924959-8