Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 27 April 1971.Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II, p420 The result was a victory for incumbent president Park Chung Hee, who received 53% of the vote. Voter turnout was 80%.Nohlen et al., p465 Within a year of his re-election, Park declared martial law and introduced the Yushin Constitution, which vested him with sweeping and near-dictatorial powers.
These would be the last contested presidential elections in South Korea until 1981, the last direct presidential election until 1987, and last presidential election in which the victor received an absolute majority of the popular vote until Park's daughter, Park Geun-hye, did so in 2012.
Nominations Democratic Republican Party The DRP Convention was held on 17 March 1971, at which incumbent president Park Chung Hee became the presidential nominee. Under the constitution, Park would have normally been ineligible to run in 1971, as presidents were limited to two consecutive terms. However, shortly after his re-election in 1967, the DRP-dominated legislature passed a constitutional amendment allowing the incumbent president to run for three consecutive terms.
New Democratic Party By tradition, the most senior members of the party leadership were supposed to run for president. It was assumed that either former Korea University president Yu Jin-oh, the sitting party chair Yu Jin-san, or former president Yun Po-sun would be chosen for the party's candidate. However, the norm was broken by lawmaker Kim Young-sam, who was only in his early forties, when he declared his bid for the New Democratic nomination for president on 8 November 1969. He was followed by Kim Dae-jung and Lee Cheol-seung, both prominent politicians in their forties. The party leadership tried to discourage the three candidates at first, but later conceded that it was now time for the new generation to take over. Lee Cheol-seung withdrew his bid and endorsed Kim Dae-jung after the party leadership, including Chairman Yu Jin-san, announced they would be backing Kim Young-sam.
At the convention held on 29 September 1970, the establishment-endorsed Kim Young-sam surprisingly lost to the minority faction's Kim Dae-jung, who became the party's candidate.
CandidateFirst roundSecond roundDelegates%Delegates%Kim Dae-jung38243.1645851.81Kim Young-sam42147.5741046.38Invalid/blank votes829.27161.81Total885100884100
Results
By province and city Province/City Park Chung Hee Kim Dae-jung Jin Bok-ki Park Gi-chul Lee Jong-yun Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % Seoul805,77239.951,198,01859.406,8810.344,8110.241,4260.07Busan385,99955.66302,45243.611,9740.282,5180.365830.08Gyeonggi687,98548.87696,58249.4813,7700.986,5470.472,9950.21Gangwon502,72259.85325,55638.767,3260.872,9850.361,3900.17North Chungcheong312,74457.32222,10640.706,9891.282,6620.491,1540.21South Chungcheong556,63253.49461,97844.3914,4111.385,2850.512,3220.22North Jeolla308,85035.49535,51961.5321,1622.433,1670.361,6460.19South Jeolla479,73734.43874,97462.8031,9862.304,3620.312,1220.15North Gyeongsang1,333,05175.62411,11623.329,8380.566,4380.372,3740.13South Gyeongsang891,11973.36310,59525.576,7930.564,5800.381,6340.13Jeju78,21756.8557,00441.431,7841.303980.291770.13 Total6,342,82853.20 5,395,900 45.26 122,914 1.03 43,753 0.37 17,823 0.15 References