[1] The elections were held following coups in 1979 and 1980, with major opposition political figures including Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil barred from running and the Democratic Republican Party of late president Park Chung-hee forcibly dissolved.

While ostensibly multi-party, the elections are widely considered to have been fraudulent, with opposition politicians being heavily vetted by the Agency for National Security Planning and the South Korean Army Security Command.

The result was a victory for the Democratic Justice Party, which won 151 of the 276 seats in the National Assembly.

The new electoral system for the National Assembly abolished the president's power to appoint one-third of the chamber's members.

Of the 276 seats, 184 were elected in two-member constituencies via single non-transferable vote, while the remainder were allocated via proportional representation at the national level among parties that won five or more seats in constituencies.