1981 South Korean legislative election

1981 South Korean legislative election

25 March 1981
All 276 seats in the National Assembly 139 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	77.74% ( 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.

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 were 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.

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 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 vote share.

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats
				FPTP	PR	Total	+/–
	Democratic Justice Party	5,776,624	35.64	90	61	151	New
	Democratic Korea Party	3,495,829	21.57	57	24	81	New
	Korean National Party	2,147,293	13.25	18	7	25	New
	Civil Rights Party	1,088,847	6.72	2	0	2	New
	New Politics Party	676,921	4.18	2	0	2	New
	Democratic Socialist Party	524,361	3.24	2	0	2	New
	Democratic Farmer's Party	227,715	1.41	1	0	1	New
	Peaceful People Party	144,000	0.89	1	0	1	New
	Socialist Party	122,778	0.76	0	0	0	New
	Korea Christian Democratic Party	103,893	0.64	0	0	0	New
	Unification National Group Party	87,977	0.54	0	0	0	New
	Won-il Democratic Founding Party	76,863	0.47	0	0	0	New
	Independents	1,734,224	10.70	11	0	11	–11
Total		16,207,325	100.00	184	92	276	+45
Valid votes		16,207,325	98.84
Invalid/blank votes		190,520	1.16
Total votes		16,397,845	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		21,094,468	77.74
Source: Nohlen et al.

By city/province

Region	Total seats	Seats won
		DJP	DKP	KNP	CRP	NPP	DSP	DFP	PPP	Ind.
Seoul	28	14	11	1	0	0	1	0	0	1
Busan	12	6	5	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Gyeonggi	24	12	10	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
Gangwon	12	6	4	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
North Chungcheong	8	4	1	3	0	0	0	0	0	1
South Chungcheong	16	8	5	2	0	0	0	0	0	1
North Jeolla	14	7	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
South Jeolla	22	10	9	1	0	1	0	0	1	0
North Gyeongsang	26	13	1	5	0	0	0	0	0	3
South Gyeongsang	20	10	5	3	1	0	1	1	0	3
Jeju	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
Constituency total	184	90	57	18	2	2	2	1	1	11
PR list	92	61	24	7	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	276	151	81	25	2	2	2	1	1	11