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.
March 1960 South Korean presidential election
Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 15 March 1960. Shortly after winning reelection to a third term in 1956, Rhee had the legislature pass a constitutional amendment exempting the incumbent president—himself—from the three-term limit. He then immediately announced his candidacy for a fourth term.