SEOUL
President Roh Tae-woo took the oath of office ushering in the Sixth Republic in February 1988. President Roh began his term of office by promising that the authoritarian rule of the past would end and that the June 29 Declaration would continue to be adhered to. Prior to the presidential election of 1987, Roh made a dramatic declaration, now known as the June 29 Declaration, in which he accepted ractically all of the opposition demands including choosing of the President through a popular vote which led to his assumption of power as the first popularly elected President in 16 years.
During his term of office, President Roh took many measures and steps with the aim of liberalizing and democratizing the national life and institutions. These included the repeal or revision of non-democratic laws and regulations, release of many political detainees and discontinuation of surveillance of the news rooms of major press organizations including radio and television stations by the government’s intelligence agents.
During the Roh administration, Interna-tional Olympic games were held in Seoul for the first time in the nation’s history. The 24th Olympics held in Korea in 1988 was widely hailed as a great success. President Roh shook the political world of the country in January 1990 by announcing a grand unprecedented alignment in which his ruling Democratic Justice Party merged into a new Democratic Liberal Party with two major opposition political parties, Kim Yong-sam’s Reunification Democratic Party and the New Democratic Republican Party led by Kim Jong-pil.
The unusual political realignment was the direct result of the surprising returns of the National Assembly election held on April 26, 1988. The final vote tallies of the nationwide elections revealed that Roh’s ruling Democratic Justice Party failed to muster a working majority in the National Assembly. On top of that, the Democratic Party for Peace led by Kim Dae-jung came out to be the largest opposition in the National Assembly. Through this grand maneuver, it was Kim Yong-sam who benefitted most in paving the way for his triumphant victory in the presidential race in 1992.