# 2002 South Korean presidential election

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.

## 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 Dae-jung 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
* Lee 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

#### Results

| Contest | Roh Moo-hyun | Roh Moo-hyun | Chung Dong-young | Chung Dong-young | Lee In-je | Lee In-je | Kim Joong-kwon | Kim Joong-kwon | Han Hwa-gap | Han Hwa-gap | Yu Jong-geun | Yu Jong-geun | Kim Geun-tae | Kim Geun-tae |
| Contest | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % |
| Jeju 9 March | 125 | 18.6 | 110 | 16.4 | 172 | 25.6 | 55 | 8.2 | 175 | 26.1 | 18 | 2.7 | 16 | 2.4 |
| Ulsan 10 March | 298 | 29.4 | 65 | 6.4 | 222 | 21.9 | 281 | 27.8 | 116 | 11.5 | 20 | 2.0 | 10 | 1.0 |
| Gwangju 16 March | 595 | 37.9 | 54 | 3.4 | 491 | 31.3 | 148 | 9.4 | 280 | 17.9 | – | – | – | – |
| Daejeon 17 March | 219 | 16.5 | 54 | 4.1 | 894 | 67.5 | 81 | 6.1 | 77 | 5.8 | – | – | – | – |
| South Chungcheong 23 March | 277 | 14.2 | 39 | 2.0 | 1,432 | 73.7 | 196 | 10.1 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Gangwon 24 March | 630 | 42.5 | 71 | 4.8 | 623 | 42.0 | 159 | 10.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| South Gyeongsang 30 March | 1,713 | 72.2 | 191 | 8.1 | 468 | 19.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| North Jeolla 31 March | 756 | 34.3 | 738 | 33.5 | 710 | 32.2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Daegu 5 April | 1,137 | 62.3 | 181 | 9.9 | 506 | 27.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Incheon 6 April | 1,022 | 51.9 | 131 | 6.7 | 816 | 41.4 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| North Gyeongsang 7 April | 1,246 | 59.4 | 183 | 8.7 | 668 | 31.9 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| North Chungcheong 13 April | 387 | 32.1 | 83 | 6.9 | 734 | 61.0 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| South Jeolla 14 April | 1,297 | 62.0 | 340 | 16.3 | 454 | 21.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Busan 20 April | 1,328 | 62.5 | 796 | 37.5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Gyeonggi 21 April | 1,191 | 45.5 | 1,426 | 54.5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Internet voting 26 April | 1,423 | 81.3 | 327 | 18.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Seoul 27 April | 3,924 | 66.5 | 1,978 | 33.5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Total | 17,577 | 72.2 | 6,767 | 27.8 | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew |

### 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

#### Results

| Contest | Lee Hoi-chang | Lee Hoi-chang | Choi Byung-ryul | Choi Byung-ryul | Lee Bu-young | Lee Bu-young | Lee Sang-hee | Lee Sang-hee |
| Contest | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % |
| Incheon 13 April | 1,111 | 79.3 | 79 | 5.6 | 201 | 14.3 | 10 | 0.7 |
| Ulsan 18 April | 446 | 59.0 | 206 | 27.2 | 73 | 9.7 | 31 | 4.1 |
| Jeju 20 April | 361 | 73.4 | 65 | 13.2 | 48 | 12.1 | 18 | 2.2 |
| Gangwon 23 April | 891 | 80.5 | 101 | 9.1 | 71 | 6.4 | 44 | 4.0 |
| North Gyeongsang and Daegu 24 April | 3,143 | 83.7 | 427 | 11.4 | 133 | 3.5 | 54 | 1.4 |
| North Jeolla 27 April | 505 | 54.2 | 117 | 12.6 | 278 | 29.9 | 31 | 3.3 |
| South Gyeongsang and Busan 28 April | 2,895 | 70.1 | 934 | 22.6 | 197 | 4.8 | 103 | 2.5 |
| South Chungcheong and Daejeon 30 April | 1,643 | 83.6 | 153 | 7.8 | 124 | 6.3 | 45 | 2.3 |
| South Jeolla and Gwangju 2 May | 1,112 | 54.0 | 368 | 17.9 | 512 | 24.9 | 67 | 3.3 |
| Gyeonggi 4 May | 2,461 | 71.3 | 424 | 12.3 | 486 | 14.1 | 81 | 2.3 |
| North Chungcheong 7 May | 592 | 72.3 | 152 | 18.6 | 60 | 7.3 | 15 | 1.8 |
| Seoul 9 May | 2,321 | 47.9 | 1,668 | 34.5 | 743 | 15.3 | 109 | 2.3 |
| Total | 17,481 | 69.0 | 4,694 | 18.3 | 2,926 | 11.4 | 608 | 2.4 |

### Democratic Labor Party

Labor activist Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party was nominated for president.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| Kwon Young-ghil | 7,297 | 90.85 |
| Against | 735 | 9.15 |
| Total | 8,032 | 100.00 |
| Registered voters/turnout | 12,877 | – |

## 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.

### 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.
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.
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. 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 | 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 [ko] | 74,027 | 0.30 |
| | Kim Gil-soo [ko] | Fatherland Defenders Party [ko] | 51,104 | 0.21 |
| | Kim Yeong-gyu [ko] | Socialist Party | 22,063 | 0.09 |
| | Jang Se-dong [ko] | Independent | | |
| Total | Total | Total | 24,561,916 | 100.00 |
| Valid votes | Valid votes | Valid votes | 24,561,916 | 99.10 |
| Invalid/blank votes | Invalid/blank votes | Invalid/blank votes | 223,047 | 0.90 |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 24,784,963 | 100.00 |
| Registered voters/turnout | Registered voters/turnout | Registered voters/turnout | 34,991,529 | 70.83 |

### By region
#### Major candidates

Breakdown of votes by region for candidates with at least 1% of the total votes.
| Region | Roh Moo-hyun | Roh Moo-hyun | Lee Hoi-chang | Lee Hoi-chang | Kwon Young-ghil | Kwon Young-ghil |
| Region | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % |
| Seoul | 2,792,957 | 51.3 | 2,447,376 | 45.0 | 179,790 | 3.3 |
| Busan | 587,946 | 29.9 | 1,314,274 | 66.8 | 61,281 | 3.1 |
| Daegu | 240,745 | 18.7 | 1,002,164 | 77.8 | 42,174 | 3.3 |
| Incheon | 611,766 | 49.8 | 547,205 | 44.6 | 61,655 | 5.0 |
| Gwangju | 715,182 | 95.2 | 26,869 | 3.6 | 7,243 | 1.0 |
| Daejeon | 369,046 | 55.1 | 266,760 | 39.8 | 29,728 | 4.4 |
| Ulsan | 178,584 | 35.3 | 267,737 | 52.9 | 57,786 | 11.4 |
| Gyeonggi | 2,430,193 | 50.7 | 2,120,191 | 44.2 | 209,346 | 4.4 |
| Gangwon | 316,722 | 41.5 | 400,405 | 52.5 | 38,722 | 5.1 |
| North Chungcheong | 365,623 | 50.4 | 311,044 | 42.9 | 41,731 | 5.8 |
| South Chungcheong | 474,531 | 52.2 | 375,110 | 41.2 | 49,579 | 5.5 |
| North Jeolla | 966,053 | 91.6 | 65,334 | 6.2 | 14,904 | 1.4 |
| South Jeolla | 1,070,506 | 93.4 | 53,074 | 4.6 | 12,215 | 1.1 |
| North Gyeongsang | 311,358 | 21.7 | 1,056,446 | 73.5 | 62,522 | 4.4 |
| South Gyeongsang | 434,642 | 27.1 | 1,083,564 | 67.5 | 79,853 | 5.0 |
| Jeju | 148,423 | 56.1 | 105,744 | 39.6 | 8,619 | 3.3 |
| Total | 12,014,277 | 48.9 | 11,443,297 | 46.6 | 957,148 | 3.9 |
| Source: National Election Commission |||||||

#### Minor candidates

Breakdown of votes by region for candidates with less than 1% of the total votes.
| Region | Lee Han-dong | Kim Gil-soo | Kim Yeong-gyu |
| Seoul | 12,724 | 6,437 | 4,706 |
| Busan | 2,148 | 2,064 | 1,380 |
| Daegu | 1,699 | 1,317 | 810 |
| Incheon | 3,600 | 1,978 | 1,612 |
| Gwangju | 803 | 1,014 | 305 |
| Daejeon | 1,157 | 1,408 | 747 |
| Ulsan | 997 | 716 | 502 |
| Gyeonggi | 26,072 | 8,085 | 4,119 |
| Gangwon | 3,406 | 2,713 | 969 |
| North Chungcheong | 3,205 | 2,610 | 949 |
| South Chungcheong | 4,973 | 4,322 | 1,303 |
| North Jeolla | 2,505 | 5,187 | 817 |
| South Jeolla | 2,830 | 6,707 | 988 |
| North Gyeongsang | 3,332 | 2,936 | 1,344 |
| South Gyeongsang | 2,832 | 2,629 | 1,224 |
| Jeju | 744 | 981 | 288 |
| Total | 74,027 | 51,104 | 22,063 |
| Source: National Election Commission ||||