After the 1979 South Korean coup d'état, the Democratic Republican Party of former dictator Park Chung Hee was banned by the new government under Chun Doo-hwan.

The KNP withered away after the 1985 legislative elections, and the bulk of its adherents moved into the nascent New Democratic Republican Party (NDRP) under Kim Jong-pil, who had been prime minister under Park Chung Hee from 1971 to 1975.

Kim Jong-pil and the NDRP launched an active nationwide political campaign during the 1987 presidential election, which was the first in South Korea following democratisation that same year.

In 1995, Jong-pil and others who opposed the policies of Kim Young-sam, who became president in 1992, defected and formed a new party called the United Liberal Democrats.

He promised to continue Park's policy framework, appealing to some conservative elements of South Korea's middle class.