by Prof. Kathryn Weathersby

If observers of South Korean politics were asked to describe it in one word, they would likely say “polarized.” Political allegiances are divided sharply into left and right, and the struggle between the two interacts with the South/North conflict to push both sides toward extremes. As we look at the creation of separate states on the peninsula in 1948, we can see that this pattern of political polarization was solidified by the elections of May 1948.

As soon as Kim Ku and Kim Kyu-sik returned from the Pyongyang conference in late April, which we discussed in the last post, Communists in the south intensified their efforts to block the elections for a Constitutional Assembly that were scheduled for May 10. They hoped that violence and threats of assassinations and riots would persuade UNTCOK to abandon its plans to supervise the elections, and thus remove the United Nations’ stamp of approval from the creation of a separate government in the South. If that didn’t work, the chaos might at least persuade many voters to stay away from the polling sites.

Instead, the opposite happened. Extreme action on the left prompted extreme action on the right. Police intensified their repression of leftists, General Hodge placed the newly formed constabulary army on alert, and the South Korean Interim Government created Community Protective Associations that were in reality gangs of young men armed with clubs and axes. On the surface, the goal of these Community Protective Associations was to combat the threat of communism, but, as so often happens, such groups provided a means for violence-prone men to retaliate against whomever they disliked. For the month of April, there were at least 200 victims of violence, including eight election officials and two candidates, not counting the thousands killed on Jeju Island on April 3. The week before the elections more than 300 people were killed, including 32 policemen.

Given the strength of rightist forces, it is not surprising that three-fourths of the nearly one thousand candidates for the Constitutional Assembly were allied with either Syngman Rhee or Kim Seong-su. Rhee himself ran unopposed after the National Election Committee rejected the application of Daniel Choi, who wanted to run against Rhee. Despite all these irregularities, on April 28 five members of UNTCOK voted to go ahead with the elections on the grounds that there was a “reasonable degree of free expression” in southern Korea. The representatives from Australia, Canada, and Syria refused to make such a statement and instead abstained from the vote.

In the end, the efforts to prevent communist sabotage were successful. UNTCOK observers reported instances of intimidation, bribery, and fraud, and 45 deaths were recorded, but despite the boycott called by Kim Ku and Kim Kyu-sik, more than 90% of registered voters cast ballots. Fifty-five of the two hundred seats were won by the National Association for the Rapid Realization of Korean Independence, while eighty-five were held by independents.

How did the occupying powers react? The United States was relieved. Secretary of State George Marshall congratulated the people of southern Korea, declaring that “the fact that some 90% of registered voters cast their ballots, despite the lawless efforts of a Communist-dominated minority to prevent or sabotage the election, is a clear revelation that the Korean people are determined to form their own government by democratic means.” The Soviet Union, on the other hand, began preparations to sabotage the new government, as well as to contest its legitimacy by establishing a rival state in the North.

In the next post we will examine the complexities the US faced as it worked out plans to withdraw its forces from Korea in the wake of the creation of a new government.

[Sources: This post relies on James I. Matray, The Reluctant Crusade: American Foreign Policy in Korea, 1941-1950 (University of Hawaii Press, 1985).]