August 1960 South Korean presidential election

← March 1960 12 August 1960 1963 →
263 members of the National Assembly 176 votes needed to win
Nominee Yun Po-sun Kim Chang-sook [ko] Party Democratic Independent Electoral vote 208 29
President before election Paek Nak-chun (acting) Independent Elected President Yun Posun Democratic

Indirectpresidential elections were held in South Korea on 12 August 1960, which saw the election ofYun Posun asPresident of the Republic of Korea, aceremonial political position in theSecond Republic. Held after theApril Revolution which had forced the resignation ofSyngman Rhee, it was the only presidential election to be held during the short era of the Second Republic, as the Republic folded afterPark Chung Hee'sMay Coup the next year. The election was indirect, with a joint session of theHouse of Commons andSenate, which had beenelected in July, acting as the electors. The winning candidate required the assent of two thirds of the members of both houses.^[1]

The First Republic's presidency had broad executive power. However, due in large part to Rhee's authoritarian excesses, the framers of the 1960 Constitution opted for a parliamentary system. The presidency's powers were greatly reduced, to a point almost entirely ceremonial and representative in nature. Real power was vested in thePrime Minister.

The Democratic Party, founded in 1955 as a merger of theDemocratic Nationalist Party (DNP) and several anti-Rhee administration groups, had won well over two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly in theJuly 1960 legislative elections, and was sure to win the presidency.

However, members of the party from the DNP and those from other groups clashed strongly after the Rhee administration fell. As a result, the party was not united on whom to elect for the president. The divisions were so deep that by 4 August, the DNP faction of the Democratic Party officially declared that they would break away to form a new party.^[2]

As a result, the two factions of the Democratic Party nominated different presidential candidates; the DNP faction declared they would seek to take both the presidency and the prime minister, while the non-DNP faction said they would only take the prime minister and let the DNP faction have the presidency. This was a move by the non-DNP faction to persuade the DNP faction not to break away.

The leaders of the non-DNP faction met on 11 August in the morning and announced they would nominateYun Posun for the presidency andChang Myon as prime minister. Yun was the de facto leader of the DNP faction and was almost certain to be the faction's nominee for the presidency. Chang Myon was the incumbent president of the Democratic Party and de facto leader of the non-DNP faction.

The leaders of the DNP faction met on the evening of the same day and announced they would nominate Yun for the presidency andKim Do-yeon as prime minister. While Yun and Kim, the two major leaders of the DNP faction, had both expressed interest for the prime ministerial nomination, Yun agreed in the end to settle for the presidency in order to prevent intra-factional division.

In order to be elected, a candidate had to receive at the vote of at least two-thirds of the National Assembly members in office at the time. As there were 263 members in office at the time of the election, 220 in the House of Commons and 43 in the Senate, a candidate had to receive at least 176 votes to be elected.

Yun was elected with 208 votes, having been nominated by both factions of the Democratic Party. His closest competitor wasKim Chang-sook [ko], a formerindependence activist supported by some of the independent members of the National Assembly, who received 29 votes.^[1]

• Prime Ministers of South Korea
• List of prime ministers of South Korea

• 1960 elections in Asia
• 1960 elections in South Korea
• Presidential elections in South Korea
• Yun Posun
• August 1960 in Asia
• April Revolution

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