Syngman Rhee
On July 20, 1948, Rhee was elected president of the Republic of Korea in the South Korean presidential election, 1948 with 92.3% of the vote; the second candidate, Kim Gu, received 6.7% of the vote. On August 15, the Republic of Korea was formally established in South Korea and Rhee was inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Korea. The next month, on September 9, the north also proclaimed statehood as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Rhee himself had been an independence activist, and his relations with the "chinilpa" Korean elites who had collaborated with the Japanese were, in the words of the South Korean historian Kyung Moon Hwang, often "contentious," but in the end an understanding was reached in which, in exchange for their support, Rhee would not purge the elites. In particular, the Koreans who had served in the colonial-era National Police, whom the Americans had retained after August 1945, were promised by Rhee that their jobs would not be threatened by him. Upon independence in 1948, 53% of South Korean police officers were men who had served in the National Police during the Japanese occupation.
History of South Korea
Roh Tae-woo became president for the 13th presidential term in the first direct presidential election in 16 years. Although Roh was from a military background and one of the leaders of Chun's coup d'état, the inability of the opposition leaders Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam to agree on a unified candidacy, led to his being elected. The first female presidential candidate, Hong Sook-ja, even withdrew from the race in order to back Kim Young Sam against Roh.Roh was officially inaugurated in February 1988. The government set out to eliminate past vestiges of authoritarian rule, by revising laws and decrees to fit democratic provisions. Freedom of the press was expanded, university autonomy recognised, and restrictions on overseas travels were lifted. However, the growth of the economy had slowed down compared to the 1980s, with strong labor unions and higher wages reducing the competitiveness of Korean products on the international market, resulting in stagnant exports, while commodity prices kept on rising.