WI Second Republic of South Korea survives?

IOTL, 1961 saw the overthrow of the Second Republic of South Korea and the establishment of a military dictatorship that would be succeeded by small periods of democratic rule and other dictatorships until the 1987 Presidential election sealed South Korea into a democratic nation-state. WI the 5/16 coup d'etat did not occur in 1961, and South Korea's second republic (it's only parliamentary-based republic) survived?
 
Depends on who leads in the future then. One of the little effects of overthrowing the establishment and putting 박정희 (Park Chung-Hee) in charge was his emphasis on building up the country's industrial infrastructure, though he, along with 전두환 (Chun Doo-Hwan) concentrated the development of a lot of that infrastructure in the 경상 (Gyeongsang) region, for political reasons. Prior to Park coming to power, the only thing that kept the ROK's existence assured was the American tripwire at the DMZ and so forth. Otherwise, in a straight up fight between NK and SK, prior to a few decades ago, SK would have lost.

It really depends if the continued Second Republic is able to get Korea's economy jumpstarted on the same scale as in OTL.
 
Top