Eight million Koreans88% of the eligible voterswent to the polls last week to choose a new National Assembly. Campaigning for the 203 seats were 1,216 candidates. Biggest single campaign issue: President Syngman Rhee's bitterly opposed constitutional reform bill, which is designed to trim the Assembly's power, broaden that of the President. To push through the bill Rhee needs a two-thirds Assembly majority, and he had pleaded with voters to give it to him.
While final returns gave Rhee's Liberal Party 116 seats and control of the Assembly, the President's pet constitutional reform program appeared to be permanently bogged down....
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