Park 's popularity in South Korea declined during the 1970s , as the economic growth of the 1960s began to slow and the public became more critical of his authoritarianism . On 26 October 1979 , Park was assassinated at a safehouse by Kim Jae-gyu , the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency ( KCIA ) , causing political turmoil in South Korea . Park 's successor , Choi Kyu-hah , was an ineffective president whose authority was largely ignored by the political elite . In December , Major General Chun Doo-hwan , the Chairman of the Defense Security Command and a former military colleague of Park , overthrew Choi 's government in the Coup d'état of December Twelfth , and over the next few months gained control over most government apparatuses . In May 1980 , Chun launched the Coup d'état of May Seventeenth establishing a military dictatorship under National Council for Reunification and declared martial law . Chun violently suppressed the subsequent Gwangju Uprising democracy movement against his rule in Gwangju , during which 200-600 people may have died . In August , Choi resigned and Chun was elected President in the 1980 presidential election by the National Council , running unopposed and winning 99.37 % of the vote . In October , Chun abolished all political parties and established his own , the Democratic Justice Party , which was effectively a re-branding of Park 's Democratic Republican Party that ruled South Korea since 1963 . Soon afterwards , a new constitution was enacted that , while far less authoritarian than Park 's Yusin Constitution , still gave fairly broad powers to the president . The Fifth Republic of Korea was formally inaugurated on 3 March 1981 , when Chun was inaugurated as President after being re-elected in the February 1981 presidential election
Park was assassinated
Assassination of Park Chung-hee
Fifth Republic of Korea