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29 Harv. Int'l. L. J. 423 (1988)
International Election Observation: The 1987 South Korean Presidential Election

handle is hein.journals/hilj29 and id is 433 raw text is: VOLUME 29, NUMBER 2, SPRING 1988 International Election Observation: The 1987 South Korean Presidential Election Anna Park I. INTRODUCTION At 10:00 a.m., December 18, 1987, two days after South Korea's first direct presidential election in sixteen years, the bipartisan Election Process Observer Delegation (Delegation)1 held a press conference in downtown Seoul. The Delegation, of which I was a member, consisted of eight congressional aides, one former adviser to Senator Edward Kennedy, and nine academic experts on Korea and the electoral pro- cess. We presented our observations to approximately seventy foreign journalists who had gathered to hear how we would assess the fairness of the victory of former General Roh Tae Woo, a member of the inner circle of retiring President Chun Doo Hwan. Roh, leader of the ruling Democratic Justice Party (DJP), had won a plurality of 36.9% of the vote, while Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung, the two principal opposition candidates, had received 28% and 26.9% respectively. While the Korean opposition refused to accept the results of the election, accusing the government of executing a second coup,2 the United States government had already issued a statement that the electoral process appears to have come forward smoothly on the whole. 3 The statement of the International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG), which had also sent an observer dele- gation, had contradicted the opposition's charges in even stronger terms. Even before the completion of vote counting, the IHRLG had 1. The Election Process Observer Delegation (Delegation) visited Korea from December 13 to December 19, 1987. Its mission was sponsored by the Council for the Promotion of Democracy in Korea (CPD), a nonprofit organization directed by Dr. Choi Sung-il 'and based in Arlington, Virginia. Citations to interviews are taken from my own extensive personal notes, as well as from those of three other members of the Delegation: Bob Clarke, Linda Lewis, and Andy Semmel. Edward J. Baker, Assistant Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and himself a member of the Delegation, provided invaluable assistance in the preparation of this paper. 2. Interview with Kim Young Sam, leader of the opposition Reunification Democratic Party (RDP) (Dec. 17, 1987). The first coup refers to Chun's 1979 seizure of power. See infra note 16 and accompanying text. 3. Statement by Phyllis Oakley, spokesperson for the U.S. Dep't of State (Dec. 16, 1987) (discussing the outcome of the Korean presidential election during a press briefing). The text of the statement was provided by James R. Lilley, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, during a meeting with the Delegation the day following the election, but before the completion of the vote rally. For an account of the discussion with Ambassador Lilley, see infra notes 69-70 and accompanying text.

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