The leader of the conservative opposition, Yoon Suk-yeol, was elected president of South Korea, the Yonhap agency reported Thursday, after his ruling rival, Lee Jae-myung, acknowledged his defeat in the elections that took place today.
With 98% of the votes counted, Yoon, of the People’s Power Party (PPP), “obtained 48.59% of the vote, compared to 47.79% for Lee”, of the Democratic Party (center-left) of the current President Moon Jae-in, Yonhap said.
“This is a victory of the great people of South Korea,” Yoon declared to the supporters who chanted his name in the National Assembly, the AFP agency reported
This election was reached after a campaign dominated by cross accusations between the two main candidates, Despite this, electoral participation was 77.1%, in this country of some 52 million inhabitants.
The two parties stand at ideologically opposite poles. Yoon’s victory will mark the beginning of a more conservative regime after five years under outgoing President Moon’s moderate liberals.
It is also a dramatic turnaround for the PPP, which was left in a bad position in 2017 after its leader and country president Park Geung-hye was ousted and jailed on corruption charges, though she was later pardoned.
According to analysts, a usual “revenge cycle” could now begin in South Korean politics, where presidents serve only five years in office and all living former leaders have been jailed for corruption after leaving office.
During the election campaign, Yoon, 71 years oldthreatened to investigate current President Moon Jae-in, citing “irregularities,” though without specifying which ones.
But in his victory speech, he struck a more conciliatory tone, conveying to the country, after a polarized campaign, that “the competition is now over and all must join hands to become one.”
“What the country needs now is a change,” Hong Sung-cheon, 71, said at a Seoul polling station before being sworn in as president-elect. “We cannot continue like this,” he added, quoted by the AFP news agency.
According the surveys, Seoul’s soaring real estate prices, inequalities and youth unemployment are the main concerns of voters.
The new president will also have to contend with an increasingly aggressive North Korea, which is carrying out a record series of weapons tests this year, including one last Saturday.
