2002 South Korean presidential election

2002 South Korean presidential election

← 1997 19 December 2002 2007 →
Turnout	70.8% (9.8)
Nominee Roh Moo-hyun Lee Hoi-chang Party Democratic Grand National Popular vote 12,014,277 11,443,297 Percentage 48.91% 46.59%
Results by municipal-level divisions Results by provincial-level divisions
President before election Kim Dae-jung Independent Elected President Roh Moo-hyun Democratic

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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]

As of 2021, this remains the most recent South Korean presidential election in which both major parties have been abolished.

Background[]

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[]

Millennium Democratic Party[]

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 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[]

• Roh Moo-hyun, former Member of National Assembly from Busan
• Rhee In-je, former Governor of Gyeonggi
• Chung Dong-young, Member of National Assembly from North Jeolla
• Kim Joong-kwon, former Member of National Assembly from North Gyeongsang
• Han Hwa-gap, former Member of National Assembly from South Jeolla
• Yu Jong-geun, Governor of North Jeolla
• Kim Geun-tae, Member of National Assembly from Seoul

Contests[]

Absolute majority needed

Dates	Races	Roh		Rhee		Chung		Kim J		Han		Yu		Kim G		Total
9/3	Jeju	125	18.6%	172	25.6%	110	16.4%	55	8.2%	175	26.1%	18	2.7%	16	2.4%	671	100%
10/3	Ulsan	298	29.4%	222	21.9%	65	6.4%	281	27.8%	116	11.5%	20	2.0%	10	1.0%	1,012	100%
16/3	Gwangju	595	37.9%	491	31.3%	54	3.4%	148	9.4%	280	17.9%	-	-	-	-	1,568	100%
17/3	Daejeon	219	16.5%	894	67.5%	54	4.1%	81	6.1%	77	5.8%	-	-	-	-	1,325	100%
23/3	South Chungcheong	277	14.2%	1,432	73.7%	39	2.0%	196	10.1%	-	-	-	-	-	-	1,944	100%
24/3	Gangwon	630	42.5%	623	42.0%	71	4.8%	159	10.7%	-	-	-	-	-	-	1,483	100%
30/3	South Gyeongsang	1,713	72.2%	468	19.7%	191	8.1%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2,372	100%
31/3	North Jeolla	756	34.3%	710	32.2%	738	33.5%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2,204	100%
5/4	Daegu	1,137	62.3%	506	27.7%	181	9.9%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1,824	100%
6/4	Incheon	1,022	51.9%	816	41.4%	131	6.7%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1,969	100%
7/4	North Gyeongsang	1,246	59.4%	668	31.9%	183	8.7%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2,097	100%
13/4	North Chungcheong	387	32.1%	734	61.0%	83	6.9%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1,204	100%
14/4	South Jeolla	1,297	62.0%	454	21.7%	340	16.3%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2,091	100%
20/4	Busan	1,328	62.5%	-	-	796	37.5%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2,124	100%
21/4	Gyeonggi	1,191	45.5%	-	-	1,426	54.5%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2,617	100%
26/4	Internet Voting	1,423	81.3%	-	-	327	18.7%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1,750	100%
27/4	Seoul	3,924	66.5%	-	-	1,978	33.5%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	5,902	100%
Total		17,577	72.2%	-	-	6,767	27.8%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	24,344	100%

Grand National Party[]

Candidates[]

• Lee Hoi-chang, former Prime Minister
• Choi Byung-ryul, Member of the National Assembly from Seoul
• Lee Bu-young, Member of the National Assembly from Seoul
• Lee Sang-hee, former Minister of Science and Technology^[2]

Contests[]

Simple plurality needed

Dates	Races	Lee H		Choi		Lee B		Lee S		Total
13/4	Incheon	1,111	79.3%	79	5.6%	201	14.3%	10	0.7%	1,401	100%
18/4	Ulsan	446	59.0%	206	27.2%	73	9.7%	31	4.1%	756	100%
20/4	Jeju	361	73.4%	65	13.2%	48	12.1%	18	2.2%	492	100%
23/4	Gangwon	891	80.5%	101	9.1%	71	6.4%	44	4.0%	1,107	100%
24/4	North Gyeongsang, Daegu	3,143	83.7%	427	11.4%	133	3.5%	54	1.4%	2,757	100%
27/4	North Jeolla	505	54.2%	117	12.6%	278	29.9%	31	3.3%	931	100%
28/4	South Gyeongsang, Busan	2,895	70.1%	934	22.6%	197	4.8%	103	2.5%	4,129	100%
30/4	South Chungcheong, Daejeon	1,643	83.6%	153	7.8%	124	6.3%	45	2.3%	1,965	100%
2/5	South Jeolla, Gwangju	1,112	54.0%	368	17.9%	512	24.9%	67	3.3%	2,059	100%
4/5	Gyeonggi	2,461	71.3%	424	12.3%	486	14.1%	81	2.3%	3,452	100%
7/5	North Chungcheong	592	72.3%	152	18.6%	60	7.3%	15	1.8%	819	100%
9/5	Seoul	2,321	47.9%	1,668	34.5%	743	15.3%	109	2.3%	4,841	100%
Total		17,481	69.0%	4,694	18.3%	2,926	11.4%	608	2.4%	25,709	100%

Democratic Labor Party[]

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

21 August - 7 September

	Votes	%
For Kwon Young-ghil	7,297	90.8
Against	735	9.2%
Total	8,032	100%
Registered voters/turnout	12,877	62.4%

Campaign[]

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[]

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[]

Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Roh Moo-hyun	Millennium Democratic Party	12,014,277	48.91
	Lee Hoi-chang	Grand National Party	11,443,297	46.59
	Kwon Young-ghil	Democratic Labor Party	957,148	3.90
	Lee Han-dong	One National People Unite	74,027	0.30
	Kim Gil-soo	Fatherland Defenders Party	51,104	0.21
	Kim Yeong-Gyu	Socialist Party	22,063	0.09
	Jang Se-dong	Independent
Total			24,561,916	100.00
Valid votes			24,561,916	99.10
Invalid/blank votes			223,047	0.90
Total votes			24,784,963	100.00
Registered voters/turnout			34,991,529	70.83

By region[]

regions · provinces · cities
		Roh Moo-hyun MDP		Lee Hoi-chang GNP
		Votes	%	Votes	%
Sudogwon	Seoul	2,792,957	(51.3％)	2,447,376	(44.96％)
	Incheon	611,766	(49.83％)	547,205	(44.57％)
	Gyeonggi	2,430,193	(50.65％)	2,120,191	(44.19％)
Gangwon		316,722	(41.51％)	400,405	(52.48％)
Chungcheong	Daejeon	369,046	(55.09％)	226,760	(39.82％)
	Chungcheongbuk	365,623	(50.42％)	311,044	(42.89％)
	Chungcheongnam	474,531	(52.16％)	375,110	(41.23％)
Honam （Jeolla）	Gwangju	715,182	(95.18％)	26,869	(3.58％)
	Jeollabuk	966,053	(91.59％)	65,334	(6.19％)
	Jeollanam	1,070,506	(93.39％)	53,074	(4.63％)
Yeongnam （Gyeongsang）	Busan	587,946	(29.86％)	1,314,274	(66.75％)
	Ulsan	178,584	(35.27％)	267,737	(52.88％)
	Daegu	240,745	(18.68％)	1,002,164	(77.75％)
	Gyeongsangbuk	311,358	(21.65％)	1,056,446	(73.47％)
	Gyeongsangnam	434,642	(27.08％)	1,083,564	(67.52％)
Jeju		148,423	(56.05％)	105,744	(39.63％)

References[]

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