Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 19 December 2012. They were the sixth presidential elections since democratization and the establishment of the Sixth Republic, and were held under a first-past-the-post system, in which there was a single round of voting and the candidate receiving the highest number of votes was elected. Under the South Korean constitution, a president is restricted to a single five-year term in office. The term of the then incumbent president Lee Myung-bak ended on 24 February 2013. According to the Korea Times, 30.7 million people voted with turnout at 75.8%. Park Geun-hye of the Saenuri party was elected the first female South Korean president with 51.6% of the vote opposed to 48.0% for her opponent Moon Jae-in. Park's share of the vote was the highest won by any candidate since the beginning of free and fair direct elections in 1987 and the first such election in which any candidate won a majority. Moreover, as of the 2022 election, this is the latest South Korean presidential election in which the winning candidate won an absolute majority of the vote. In 2017, following Park's impeachment and removal from office, Moon would go on to succeed her as the 12th president of South Korea following a second, successful bid for the presidency in the 2017 presidential election. Background Lee Myung-bak was elected President of South Korea in 2007 as the nominee of the conservative Grand National Party after a closely contested primary in which he narrowly defeated Park Geun-hye, and assumed office in February 2008. His victory brought to a close ten years of liberal administration under Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. The Lee Myung-bak government pursued the reduction of government bureaucracy and a laissez-faire economic policy, and came under criticism from the left for political scandals and controversial policies such as the Jeju-do Naval Base and its support of the South Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement, although both were initiated under the previous administration. Despite the fact that he was elected in a landslide victory and received initial approval ratings of 70%, Lee's ratings had declined to below 30% by 2012. At the end of 2011, Park Geun-hye assumed control of the Grand National Party, which was subsequently renamed the Saenuri or New Frontier Party in February 2012. She distanced herself from Lee and led the party towards the center. In legislative elections in April 2012,