2002 South Korean presidential election

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2002 South Korean presidential election
← 1997 19 December 2002 2007 →
Turnout70.83% (Decrease9.82pp)
 
Nominee Roh Moo-hyun Lee Hoi-chang
Party Millennium Democratic Grand National
Popular vote 12,014,277 11,443,297
Percentage 48.91% 46.59%
President before election

Kim Dae-jung
Independent

Elected President

Roh Moo-hyun
Millennium Democratic

Politics of South Korea
Government
Legislature
Executive


Prime Minister of South Korea
Han Duck-soo (I)

Judiciary

Constitutional Court of Korea
President Lee Jong-seok
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Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 19 December 2002. The result was a victory for Roh Moo-Hyun of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party, who defeated Lee Hoi-chang of the Grand National Party by just over half a million votes.[1]

Background[edit]

President Kim Dae-jung's National Congress for New Politics (NCNP) re-branded itself to Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) in 2000, but was struggling as it had defeated by the Grand National Party (GNP) both the 2000 parliamentary election and 2002 gubernatorial elections. GNP's then leader and probable presidential nominee Lee Hoi-chang was polling higher than any MDP candidates.

Primaries[edit]

Millennium Democratic Party[edit]

For the first time in South Korean history, the Democratic Party nominated its presidential candidate through open primaries.

At the beginning of the primaries, Rhee In-je, the 3-term congressman who ran against President Kim Dae-jung in 1997 but afterwards joined the ruling party, led the other candidates by a considerable margin in every poll. However, fringe candidate Roh Moo-hyun rose to prominence after winning the Gwangju contest, eventually winning his party's nomination and then the presidential election.

Candidates[edit]

Results[edit]

Contest Roh
Moo-hyun 		Chung
Dong-young 		Lee
In-je 		Kim
Joong-kwon 		Han
Hwa-gap 		Yu
Jong-geun 		Kim
Geun-tae
Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes %
Jeju
9 March 		125 18.6 110 16.4 172 25.6 55 8.2 175 26.1 18 2.7 16 2.4
Ulsan
10 March 		298 29.4 65 6.4 222 21.9 281 27.8 116 11.5 20 2.0 10 1.0
Gwangju
16 March 		595 37.9 54 3.4 491 31.3 148 9.4 280 17.9 – – – –
Daejeon
17 March 		219 16.5 54 4.1 894 67.5 81 6.1 77 5.8 – – – –
South Chungcheong
23 March 		277 14.2 39 2.0 1,432 73.7 196 10.1 – – – – – –
Gangwon
24 March 		630 42.5 71 4.8 623 42.0 159 10.7 – – – – – –
South Gyeongsang
30 March 		1,713 72.2 191 8.1 468 19.7 – – – – – – – –
North Jeolla
31 March 		756 34.3 738 33.5 710 32.2 – – – – – – – –
Daegu
5 April 		1,137 62.3 181 9.9 506 27.7 – – – – – – – –
Incheon
6 April 		1,022 51.9 131 6.7 816 41.4 – – – – – – – –
North Gyeongsang
7 April 		1,246 59.4 183 8.7 668 31.9 – – – – – – – –
North Chungcheong
13 April 		387 32.1 83 6.9 734 61.0 – – – – – – – –
South Jeolla
14 April 		1,297 62.0 340 16.3 454 21.7 – – – – – – – –
Busan
20 April 		1,328 62.5 796 37.5 – – – – – – – – – –
Gyeonggi
21 April 		1,191 45.5 1,426 54.5 – – – – – – – – – –
Internet voting
26 April 		1,423 81.3 327 18.7 – – – – – – – – – –
Seoul
27 April 		3,924 66.5 1,978 33.5 – – – – – – – – – –
Total 17,577 72.2 6,767 27.8 Withdrew Withdrew Withdrew Withdrew Withdrew

Grand National Party[edit]

Candidates[edit]

Results[edit]

Contest Lee
Hoi-chang 		Choi
Byung-ryul 		Lee
Bu-young 		Lee
Sang-hee
Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes %
Incheon
13 April 		1,111 79.3 79 5.6 201 14.3 10 0.7
Ulsan
18 April 		446 59.0 206 27.2 73 9.7 31 4.1
Jeju
20 April 		361 73.4 65 13.2 48 12.1 18 2.2
Gangwon
23 April 		891 80.5 101 9.1 71 6.4 44 4.0
North Gyeongsang and Daegu
24 April 		3,143 83.7 427 11.4 133 3.5 54 1.4
North Jeolla
27 April 		505 54.2 117 12.6 278 29.9 31 3.3
South Gyeongsang and Busan
28 April 		2,895 70.1 934 22.6 197 4.8 103 2.5
South Chungcheong and Daejeon
30 April 		1,643 83.6 153 7.8 124 6.3 45 2.3
South Jeolla and Gwangju
2 May 		1,112 54.0 368 17.9 512 24.9 67 3.3
Gyeonggi
4 May 		2,461 71.3 424 12.3 486 14.1 81 2.3
North Chungcheong
7 May 		592 72.3 152 18.6 60 7.3 15 1.8
Seoul
9 May 		2,321 47.9 1,668 34.5 743 15.3 109 2.3
Total 17,481 69.0 4,694 18.3 2,926 11.4 608 2.4

Democratic Labor Party[edit]

Labor activist Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party was nominated for president.[3]

CandidateVotes%
Kwon Young-ghil7,29790.85
Against7359.15
Total8,032100.00
Registered voters/turnout12,877–

Campaign[edit]

Although corruption scandals marred the incumbent government, Lee Hoi-chang's campaign suffered from the wave of Anti-American sentiment in Korea generated by the Yangju highway incident. Public opinion of Lee, who was widely seen as being both pro-U.S. and the preferred candidate of the George W. Bush administration in Washington, D.C., suffered. After losing to Roh by 2% in the December 2002 elections, Lee subsequently announced his retirement from politics.[4]

Roh-Chung coalition[edit]

Chung Mong-joon, the 3-term independent congressman from Ulsan and son of Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung, became so popular that he began appearing on polls for presidential election after he, as the president of the Korean Football Association, was credited for winning the right to host 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea.[5]

Chung officially launched his presidential campaign in September, and in many polls beat Roh and came close to beating Lee. Many Democratic politicians that weren't happy with Roh's nomination joined Chung's campaign. However, when it seemed clear that if both Roh and Chung ran, Lee would win easily. The two sides decided to combine forces, instead of competing against each other.

The two sides agreed on conducting two polls, each by different polling companies, where the winner would run as the unified candidate. The winner had to win both polls, or a second round had to occur.

So the two poll was conducted on 24 November, but only one validated. The other one was invalidated, as the two sides had agreed that any poll with Lee Hoi-chang polling less than 30.4% must be invalidated, since there could be a chance that Lee's supporters were attempting to manipulate the results by responding with an untrue answer.

The only poll that was validated was the one conducted by the Research and Research, and it was won by Roh.

Consequently, Chung withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Roh.[6]

24 November 2002
Candidate Research and Research Poll # of polls won
Roh 46.8% 1
Chung 42.2% 0
Lee 32.1% -

However, Chung later broke his pledge on the night before the election, when he felt that Roh broke the promise to include Chung in for policy decisions and surrounded himself only with Democrats.[7] Chung announced less than eight hours before the election that he was withdrawing his support for Roh and urged people to vote their conscience, but Roh won anyway.

Results[edit]

Result by municipalities
CandidatePartyVotes%
Roh Moo-hyunMillennium Democratic Party12,014,27748.91
Lee Hoi-changGrand National Party11,443,29746.59
Kwon Young-ghilDemocratic Labor Party957,1483.90
Lee Han-dongOne National People Unite [ko]74,0270.30
Kim Gil-soo [ko]Fatherland Defenders Party [ko]51,1040.21
Kim Yeong-gyu [ko]Socialist Party22,0630.09
Jang Se-dong [ko]Independent
Total24,561,916100.00
Valid votes24,561,91699.10
Invalid/blank votes223,0470.90
Total votes24,784,963100.00
Registered voters/turnout34,991,52970.83

By region[edit]

Major candidates[edit]

Breakdown of votes by region for candidates with at least 1% of the total votes.

Region Roh Moo-hyun Lee Hoi-chang Kwon Young-ghil
Votes % Votes % Votes %
Seoul 2,792,957 51.3 2,447,376 45.0 179,790 3.3
Busan 587,946 29.9 1,314,274 66.8 61,281 3.1
Daegu 240,745 18.7 1,002,164 77.8 42,174 3.3
Incheon 611,766 49.8 547,205 44.6 61,655 5.0
Gwangju 715,182 95.2 26,869 3.6 7,243 1.0
Daejeon 369,046 55.1 266,760 39.8 29,728 4.4
Ulsan 178,584 35.3 267,737 52.9 57,786 11.4
Gyeonggi 2,430,193 50.7 2,120,191 44.2 209,346 4.4
Gangwon 316,722 41.5 400,405 52.5 38,722 5.1
North Chungcheong 365,623 50.4 311,044 42.9 41,731 5.8
South Chungcheong 474,531 52.2 375,110 41.2 49,579 5.5
North Jeolla 966,053 91.6 65,334 6.2 14,904 1.4
South Jeolla 1,070,506 93.4 53,074 4.6 12,215 1.1
North Gyeongsang 311,358 21.7 1,056,446 73.5 62,522 4.4
South Gyeongsang 434,642 27.1 1,083,564 67.5 79,853 5.0
Jeju 148,423 56.1 105,744 39.6 8,619 3.3
Total 12,014,277 48.9 11,443,297 46.6 957,148 3.9
Source: National Election Commission

Minor candidates[edit]

Breakdown of votes by region for candidates with less than 1% of the total votes.

Region Lee
Han-dong 		Kim
Gil-soo 		Kim
Yeong-gyu
Seoul 12,724 6,437 4,706
Busan 2,148 2,064 1,380
Daegu 1,699 1,317 810
Incheon 3,600 1,978 1,612
Gwangju 803 1,014 305
Daejeon 1,157 1,408 747
Ulsan 997 716 502
Gyeonggi 26,072 8,085 4,119
Gangwon 3,406 2,713 969
North Chungcheong 3,205 2,610 949
South Chungcheong 4,973 4,322 1,303
North Jeolla 2,505 5,187 817
South Jeolla 2,830 6,707 988
North Gyeongsang 3,332 2,936 1,344
South Gyeongsang 2,832 2,629 1,224
Jeju 744 981 288
Total 74,027 51,104 22,063
Source: National Election Commission

References[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to President of South Korea.
  1. ^ "IFES Election Guide | Elections: South Korea Presidential Dec 19 2002". www.electionguide.org. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
  2. ^ "donga.com[정치:한나라당 경선]". The Dong-a Ilbo. Archived from the original on 2011-02-14. Retrieved 2018-04-20.
  3. ^ ""세상 바꾸려 대통령 후보 나섰다'20억 기탁금' 목숨 걸고 싸울터"". OhmyNews. 2002-09-09. Retrieved 2018-04-20.
  4. ^ Cossa, Ralph A. (December 2012). "U.S.-Korea Relations: Trials, Tribulations, Threats, Tirades" (PDF). Comparative Connections—An E-Journal on East Asian Bilateral Relations. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  5. ^ "[여론조사 자료실]민주 통합신당 대선후보 선호도 鄭42.1%-盧29.5%". The Dong-a Ilbo (in Korean). 2002-09-08. Archived from the original on 2018-04-21. Retrieved 2018-04-20.
  6. ^ nozzang (2008-06-13), 노무현 단일후보 확정 그 숨막히던 현장, retrieved 2018-04-20[dead YouTube link]
  7. ^ "정몽준, 자서전서 "노무현 전 대통령 지지 철회 이유는…"" (in Korean). Retrieved 2018-04-20.
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