ABSTRACT
Wednesday, 25 February 1998, dawned as a special day for Kim Dae-jung. During the morning he was formally sworn in as the eighth president of South Korea in an open-air ceremony in front of the National Assembly building at Yoido, Seoul, thereby achieving his life-time ambition. But, by the afternoon, he had already had his first taste of how troublesome that position might be, as the majority opposition party, the GNP, upset his plan to have his alliance partner Kim Jong-pil accepted as prime minister by boycotting the special National Assembly session called to approve the prime ministerial and cabinet appointments.
