Legislative elections were held in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

on 12 April 1996.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) ''Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II'', p420 The result was a victory for the

New Korea Party The New Korea Party (NKP; ) was founded by the merging of Roh Tae-woo's Democratic Justice Party, Kim Young-sam's Reunification Democratic Party and Kim Jong-pil's New Democratic Republican Party to form the Democratic Liberal Party (DLP; ). It ...

, which won 139 of the 299 seats in the National Assembly. Voter turnout was 63.9%. Although the New Korea Party remained the largest party in the National Assembly, it failed to win the majority.

Electoral system

Of the 299 seats, 253 were elected in single-member districts via

first-past-the-post voting First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...

, while the remainder were allocated via

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

at the national level. Proportional seats were only available to parties which won three percent of the national valid vote among seat-allocated parties and/or won five or more constituency seats.

Political parties

The governing

(formerly the Democratic Liberal Party) of President

Kim Young-sam Kim Young-sam (, ; 20 December 1927 – 22 November 2015), often referred to by his initials YS, was a South Korean politician and activist who served as the seventh president of South Korea from 1993 to 1998. From 1961, Kim spent almost 30 ye ...

, lost its absolute congressional majority. The election was held three years into President Kim's five year mandate. The opposition National Congress for New Politics was formed by veteran opposition leader

Kim Dae-jung Kim Dae-jung (, ; 6 January 192418 August 2009) was a South Korean politician, activist and statesman who served as the eighth president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003. Kim entered politics as a member of the new wing of the Democratic Pa ...

and his supporters in the Democratic Party. Kim had retired from politics following his loss in the 1992 Presidential election but formed the new party after his return in 1995. The right-wing

United Liberal Democrats The United Liberal Democrats (ULD; ) was a right-wing politics, right-wing conservatism, conservative political party in South Korea, whose support mostly came from the North Chungcheong Province and South Chungcheong Province regions. The short ...

was led by former

Prime Minister of South Korea The prime minister of the Republic of Korea () is the deputy head of government and the second highest political office of South Korea. The prime minister is appointed by the president of the Republic of Korea, with the National Assembly's appro ...

Kim Jong-pil Kim Jong-pil (; January 7, 1926 – June 23, 2018), also known colloquially as JP, was a South Korean politician and the founder/first director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA, now the National Intelligence Service (South Kor ...

, a former ally of President Kim. He had been a member of the former ruling Democratic Liberal Party but broke with it after Kim's victory in 1992. It joined with Kim Dae Jung's opposition and formed coalition. The United Democratic Party had once been the premier opposition party. It supported Kim Dae-jung's unsuccessful Presidential campaign in 1992 and was the largest opposition party in the outgoing

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

. However, following the defection of Kim and his supporters, the party was reduced to a minor force. It later merged to Kim Young-sam's party.

Results

By city or province

Notes

References

External links

1996 elections in South Korea
Inter-Parliamentary Union {{South Korean elections Legislative elections in South Korea

Parliamentary election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...