Mr Kim Dae-jung, South Korea's next president, survived assassination bids, a kidnapping and a death sentence before achieving his lifelong ambition. The veteran dissident and pro-democracy campaigner, who defied a succession of military strongmen and paid for it with his liberty and health, made history as the state's first opposition leader to become president.
It was his fourth run at the presidency and, at 74, probably his last realistic chance.
A populist politician with a gift for oratory, Mr Kim drew wide support among workers, students and farmers attracted by his mildly social-democratic principles. The pro-government Federation of Korean Trade Unions endorsed him as candidate.
But while his rabble-rousing style plays well with working-class South Korea - and made him a thorn in the side of past authoritarian governments - it sits uneasily in a new era of democracy.
The conservative middle classes have long viewed the prospect of Mr Kim as president with alarm. And his liberal social agenda has made him a soft target for attack as too sympathetic to the arch enemy, communist North Korea - even though he openly backs a hawkish line on Pyongyang.
He formed a seemingly odd-couple electoral marriage with Kim Jong-pil, a right-wing former premier under the late military ruler, Park Chung-hee.
It was Kim Jong-pil's government in the 1970s which had jailed Kim Dae-jung, tortured him, twice tried to assassinate him and once abducted him in Japan.
Mr Kim's victory comes five years after he announced his retirement following his defeat by an old rival, Kim Young-sam, in the 1992 presidential polls.
He said he made his comeback out of disappointment with President Kim, whose administration was buried under a landslide of scandal this year with the arrest and jailing of close aides and his own son.
Kim Dae-jung first ran for president in 1971, winning 45 per cent of the vote against Park Chunghee despite government efforts to destroy him.
During the campaign, a truck hit his car in what he claims was an assassination attempt. The accident left him with a permanent limp and chronic neuralgia.
In 1973, he was kidnapped from his Tokyo hotel room by men he identified as South Korean intelligence agents, who spirited him on to a boat and tied him to a traditional Korean burial board wired to concrete weights.
The vessel put to sea, and Mr Kim believes he was saved from death by the still-unexplained appearance over the craft of a US helicopter. Three days later, he was dumped blindfolded outside his home in Seoul.
Mr Kim was one of three hopefuls in an election planned for 1980 after Mr Park was assassinated. But Gen Chun Doo Hwan staged a coup, scuttled the elections and ordered Mr Kim arrested.
The government charged him with sedition and sentenced him to death, but the sentence was eventually suspended.