| Country: | Republic of Korea |
| Flag Year: | 1997 |
| Type: | presidential |
| Previous Election: | 1997 South Korean presidential election |
| Previous Year: | 1997 |
| Next Election: | 2007 South Korean presidential election |
| Next Year: | 2007 |
| Turnout: | 70.83% (9.82pp) |
| Election Date: | 19 December 2002 |
| Image1: | Roh Moo-hyun presidential portrait.jpg |
| Nominee1: | Roh Moo-hyun |
| Party1: | Millennium Democratic Party |
| Popular Vote1: | 12,014,277 |
| Percentage1: | 48.91% |
| Nominee2: | Lee Hoi-chang |
| Party2: | Grand National Party |
| Popular Vote2: | 11,443,297 |
| Percentage2: | 46.59% |
| President | |
| Before Election: | Kim Dae-jung |
| Before Party: | Independent (politician) |
| After Election: | Roh Moo-hyun |
| After Party: | Millennium Democratic Party |
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]
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.
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.
| Contest | Roh | Chung | Lee | Kim | Han | Yu | Kim | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | ||
| Jeju | 125 | 18.6 | 110 | 16.4 | 172 | 25.6 | 55 | 8.2 | 175 | 26.1 | 18 | 2.7 | 16 | 2.4 | |
| Ulsan | 298 | 29.4 | 65 | 6.4 | 222 | 21.9 | 281 | 27.8 | 116 | 11.5 | 20 | 2.0 | 10 | 1.0 | |
| Gwangju | 595 | 37.9 | 54 | 3.4 | 491 | 31.3 | 148 | 9.4 | 280 | 17.9 | – | – | – | – | |
| Daejeon | 219 | 16.5 | 54 | 4.1 | 894 | 67.5 | 81 | 6.1 | 77 | 5.8 | – | – | – | – | |
| South Chungcheong | 277 | 14.2 | 39 | 2.0 | 1,432 | 73.7 | 196 | 10.1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Gangwon | 630 | 42.5 | 71 | 4.8 | 623 | 42.0 | 159 | 10.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| South Gyeongsang | 1,713 | 72.2 | 191 | 8.1 | 468 | 19.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| North Jeolla | 756 | 34.3 | 738 | 33.5 | 710 | 32.2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Daegu | 1,137 | 62.3 | 181 | 9.9 | 506 | 27.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Incheon | 1,022 | 51.9 | 131 | 6.7 | 816 | 41.4 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| North Gyeongsang | 1,246 | 59.4 | 183 | 8.7 | 668 | 31.9 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| North Chungcheong | 387 | 32.1 | 83 | 6.9 | 734 | 61.0 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| South Jeolla | 1,297 | 62.0 | 340 | 16.3 | 454 | 21.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Busan | 1,328 | 62.5 | 796 | 37.5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Gyeonggi | 1,191 | 45.5 | 1,426 | 54.5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Internet voting | 1,423 | 81.3 | 327 | 18.7 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Seoul | 3,924 | 66.5 | 1,978 | 33.5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Total | 17,577 | 72.2 | 6,767 | 27.8 | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | Withdrew | ||||||
| Contest | Lee | Choi | Lee | Lee | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | ||
| Incheon | 79 | 5.6 | 201 | 14.3 | 10 | 0.7 | |||
| Ulsan | 206 | 27.2 | 73 | 9.7 | 31 | 4.1 | |||
| Jeju | 65 | 13.2 | 48 | 12.1 | 18 | 2.2 | |||
| Gangwon | 101 | 9.1 | 71 | 6.4 | 44 | 4.0 | |||
| North Gyeongsang and Daegu | 427 | 11.4 | 133 | 3.5 | 54 | 1.4 | |||
| North Jeolla | 117 | 12.6 | 278 | 29.9 | 31 | 3.3 | |||
| South Gyeongsang and Busan | 934 | 22.6 | 197 | 4.8 | 103 | 2.5 | |||
| South Chungcheong and Daejeon | 153 | 7.8 | 124 | 6.3 | 45 | 2.3 | |||
| South Jeolla and Gwangju | 368 | 17.9 | 512 | 24.9 | 67 | 3.3 | |||
| Gyeonggi | 424 | 12.3 | 486 | 14.1 | 81 | 2.3 | |||
| North Chungcheong | 152 | 18.6 | 60 | 7.3 | 15 | 1.8 | |||
| Seoul | 1,668 | 34.5 | 743 | 15.3 | 109 | 2.3 | |||
| Total | 4,694 | 18.3 | 2,926 | 11.4 | 608 | 2.4 | |||
Labor activist Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party was nominated for president.[3]
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]
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.
| Roh | 46.8% | 1 | |
| Chung | 42.2% | 0 | |
| Lee | 32.1% | - |
Breakdown of votes by region for candidates with at least 1% of the total votes.
| Region | Roh Moo-hyun | Lee Hoi-chang | Kwon Young-ghil | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| colspan="2" | |||||||
| Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | ||
| Seoul | 2,447,376 | 45.0 | 179,790 | 3.3 | |||
| Busan | 587,946 | 29.9 | 61,281 | 3.1 | |||
| Daegu | 240,745 | 18.7 | 42,174 | 3.3 | |||
| Incheon | 547,205 | 44.6 | 61,655 | 5.0 | |||
| Gwangju | 26,869 | 3.6 | 7,243 | 1.0 | |||
| Daejeon | 266,760 | 39.8 | 29,728 | 4.4 | |||
| Ulsan | 178,584 | 35.3 | 57,786 | 11.4 | |||
| Gyeonggi | 2,120,191 | 44.2 | 209,346 | 4.4 | |||
| Gangwon | 316,722 | 41.5 | 38,722 | 5.1 | |||
| North Chungcheong | 311,044 | 42.9 | 41,731 | 5.8 | |||
| South Chungcheong | 375,110 | 41.2 | 49,579 | 5.5 | |||
| North Jeolla | 65,334 | 6.2 | 14,904 | 1.4 | |||
| South Jeolla | 53,074 | 4.6 | 12,215 | 1.1 | |||
| North Gyeongsang | 311,358 | 21.7 | 62,522 | 4.4 | |||
| South Gyeongsang | 434,642 | 27.1 | 79,853 | 5.0 | |||
| Jeju | 105,744 | 39.6 | 8,619 | 3.3 | |||
| Total | 11,443,297 | 46.6 | 957,148 | 3.9 | |||
| Source: National Election Commission | |||||||
Breakdown of votes by region for candidates with less than 1% of the total votes.
| Region | Lee | Kim | Kim | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | ||||