Constitutional Assembly elections were held in South Korea on 10 May 1948. They were held under the U.S. military occupation, with supervision from the United Nations, and resulted in a victory for the National Association for the Rapid Realisation of Korean Independence, which won 55 of the 200 seats, although 85 were held by independents. Voter turnout was 95%.Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II, p428
The elections were the first time in Korean history that the citizens were allowed to vote for a national legislative body. The Korean Peninsula had been under Japanese colonial rule for thirty-five years (1910–1945), and for hundreds of years before that, it had been governed by the (Yi Dynasty) Korean royal family and scholarly officials.
Background
The elections were a milestone in Korean political history. The Korean people had not previously experienced democracy under written constitutional rule; the very foundation of South Korean politics were still under construction and were unstable.Kim, Ilpyong. Young, Whan Kihl. Political Change in South Korea. The Korean PWPA, Inc. Paragon House, New York. 1988. p24. The elections would lead to a constitution, roughly based on the constitution of the United States.
In 1948 the subject of an election of any kind in South Korea was an issue worldwide. On 8 and 9 March 1948, UN delegates from Australia, Canada, India, and Syria expressed their doubts and some complete rejection of the elections on 10 May 1948 for South Korea. The UN delegates were concerned by Korea's political maturity at the time, feeling that the elections might not validly express the popular will in a country which had only been independent for four years. Some Korean politicians, such as Kim Koo and Kim Kyu-sik, denounced the election as it would dash the hopes of reunification with North Korea. However, a vote in the South Korean Interim Legislature on 10 March ruled 40 to 0 in favor of holding the election.
The elections were originally intended to be held throughout the Korean Peninsula, but Soviet Union forces and Kim Il-sung refused the UN supervisors entry into North Korea for the elections. They were therefore held only in the accessible territory, making the elections a purely South Korean event. Because of this, Kim Koo the last president of the Korean Provisional Government and Kim Kyu-sik the former chairman of the South Korean Interim Legislature, denounced the elections as they would dash hopes of reunification with North Korea, but could not prevent them from happening. The voters elected members of a constitutional convention, which then voted on the constitution and re-convened as the national legislature to elect the president. At the proceedings, they left one hundred seats open in the Constituent National Assembly for North Koreans to vote on when they were able.
North Korea rejected a nationwide general election based on population proportion and insisted that the election be held with equal representation between the South and the North on a 1:1 basis. South Korea had twice the population of North Korea, and anti-communist sentiment was very strong in the South.
South Korea was marred with political violence in the days preceding the election, with roughly 323 people being killed in riots or police raids, and more than 10,000 arrested.Slater, Joseph E., "Voices in the Wind: American Opposition to the Korean War" (1983). Honors Papers. 648. Pg.44
Electoral system The right to vote was granted to all individuals aged 21 and above, regardless of gender, and those with pro-Japanese collaborationist backgrounds were deprived of their voting rights.
Conduct Much of the Korean Left and the Nationalist right boycotted the elections.Slater, Joseph E., "Voices in the Wind: American Opposition to the Korean War" (1983). Honors Papers. 648. Pg.43 The result was that many of those running in the election were pro-Rhee candidates.Slater, Joseph E., "Voices in the Wind: American Opposition to the Korean War" (1983). Honors Papers. 648. Pg.43 In 1946, during the elections, there were suspicions that the U.S. military government had illegally intervened to support the moderates. Because of this, many Koreans actively participated in voting. At that time, many Koreans saw communists as proxies of foreign powers because they supported trusteeship. Moreover, most independence activists were nationalists rather than communists.
The elections were marred by terrorism resulting in 600 deaths between March and May. In April, North Korea, supposedly in an effort to delay the elections, sponsored a unity conference in Pyongyang to promote reunification of the two Koreas, which both Kim Koo and Kim Kyu-sik attended. The conference was inconclusive towards any upcoming reunification, and did not delay the elections.Allen, p. 93
The people of Jeju Island saw the election as a something that would cause divisionWright, Edward Reynolds. Korean Politics in Transition. University of Washington Press. Seattle Washington. 1975. Page 19 The Jeju uprising occurred, during which tens of thousands of Jeju people were killed.
Results
Results by province or city Province/CitySeatsNAKDPKYPOthersINDSeoul1014212Gyeonggi29723116Gangwon12615North Chungcheong122118South Chungcheong191018North Jeolla2264138South Jeolla29510149North Gyeongsang331152411South Gyeongsang3163517Jeju3111Total2005529121985Source: National Election Commission
Gallery
See also List of members of the South Korean Constituent Assembly, 1948–1950 1946 North Korean local elections 1947 North Korean local elections People's Republic of Korea
Notes
References
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