Editing Kim Dae-jung (section)

===Transition period as president-elect===
Two days after the election, outgoing president Kim Young-sam and the president-elect Kim Dae-jung met and formed a joint 12-member Emergency Economic Committee (ECC), made up of six members each from the outgoing and incoming governments but effectively under the president-elect's control, serving as the de facto economic cabinet until Kim Dae-jung would assume office two months later on 25 February 1998. This meant that Kim effectively had taken charge of making economic decisions during this period even before he took office.

The president-elect's coalition and the majority Grand National Party of the outgoing president also agreed to convene a special session of the National Assembly to deal with a series of thirteen financial reform bills required under both the original IMF program and its 24 December revised deal. This transition period saw important financial reform legislation being passed into law, that had been stalled under the outgoing government. The president-elect cooperated with the outgoing government and ruling party to get legislative backing for several important reform measures. In particular, the delegation of substantial powers to the newly created [[Financial Services Commission (South Korea)|Financial Supervisory Commission]] (FSC) greatly enhanced the government's powers to rein in the [[chaebol]]s who were caught up in the crisis.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sharma|first1=Shalendra|title=The Asian financial crisis: Crisis, reform and recovery|date=2003|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=|isbn=|page=231}}</ref>

As president-elect, Kim Dae-jung also advised outgoing president Kim Young-sam to pardon two former presidents who were both imprisoned in 1996 for corruption, treason and insurrection, [[Chun Doo-hwan]] (who had Kim sentenced to death) and [[Roh Tae-woo]] (Chun's second-in-command), in the spirit of national unity.