Legislative elections were held in South Korea on 25 March 1981.Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II, p420 The elections were held following coups in 1979 and 1980, with major opposition political figures including Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil barred from running and the Democratic Republican Party of late president Park Chung-hee forcibly dissolved. Kim Dae-jung was arrested on 17 May 1980, and was sentenced to death on a of "inciting rebellion". While ostensibly multi-party, the elections are widely considered to have been fraudulent, with opposition politicians being heavily vetted by the Agency for National Security Planning and the South Korean Army Security Command.
The result was a victory for the Democratic Justice Party, which won 151 of the 276 seats in the National Assembly. Voter turnout was 78%.
Electoral system The new electoral system for the National Assembly abolished the president's power to appoint one-third of the chamber's members. Of the 276 seats, 184 were elected in two-member constituencies via single non-transferable vote, while the remainder were allocated via modified proportional representation at the national level among parties that won five or more seats in constituencies. Two-thirds of those seats would be awarded to the top party (which was then eliminated from further consideration for national seats), with the remainder allocated based on the number of constituency seats won.
Results
By city/province RegionTotalseatsSeats wonDJPDKPKNPCRPNPPDSPDFPPPPInd.Seoul2814111001001Busan12650100000Gyeonggi2412101010000Gangwon12642000000North Chungcheong8413000001South Chungcheong16852000001North Jeolla14760000000South Jeolla221091010010North Gyeongsang261315000003South Gyeongsang201053101103Jeju2000000002Constituency total1849057182221111PR list9261247000000Total27615181252221111
References