Establishment of the Republic of Korea

The National Assembly elected on 10 May drew up a constitution, and on 15 August 1948 the government of the Republic of Korea was established.

After the Constitutional Assembly promulgated the constitution on 17 July and elected Syngman Rhee president and Yi Si-yeong vice president on 20 July, Rhee formed a cabinet under Prime Minister Lee Beom-seok. The founding of the government was proclaimed at home and abroad at the ceremony marking the third anniversary of liberation on 15 August 1948. The constitution’s preamble claimed the independence spirit of the Republic of Korea founded through the March First Movement, continuing the Provisional Government.

In December the UN General Assembly recognized the government as the only lawful government on the peninsula, elected in the part of Korea the UN Temporary Commission had been able to observe. But the North–South negotiation group around Kim Gu and Kim Gyu-sik had boycotted the election as a separate government, and when a government was set up in the north in September the division hardened.

The new state set to work with the Special Committee for Investigation of Anti-National Acts under the 1948 law punishing collaborators, and with the Land Reform Act of 1949. Meanwhile left–right conflict brought tragedies such as the Jeju April Third Incident and the Yeosu–Suncheon Incident.