South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung of the left-leaning Democratic Party appeared on track to win the election by a landslide, exit polls showed yesterday, with turnout high after months of political chaos.
Six months to the day after former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol plunged the country into crisis with his disastrous declaration of martial law, an exit poll by the three major broadcasters showed Lee with 51.7 percent of the vote.
Conservative challenger Kim Moon-soo was on track to win 39.3 percent, the poll showed.
Photo: AFP
After months of turmoil and a revolving door of lame-duck acting leaders, many South Koreans were eager for the country to move forward, with major polls for weeks putting Lee well ahead of Kim.
“I hope the next president will create an atmosphere of peace and unity rather than ideological warfare,” cab driver Choi Sung-wook, 68, said as he cast his ballot.
South Korea’s next leader is to take office almost immediately — as soon as the National Election Commission finishes counting the votes and validates the result, likely early today.
Photo: AP
He will face a bulging in-tray, including global trade vicissitudes chafing the export-driven economy, some of the world’s lowest birthrates and an emboldened North Korea rapidly expanding its military arsenal.
However, the fallout from Yoon’s martial law declaration, which has left South Korea effectively leaderless for the first months of US President Donald Trump’s tumultuous second term, was the decisive factor in the election, experts said.
The vote was “largely viewed as a referendum on the previous administration,” said Kang Joo-hyun, a political science professor at Sookmyung Women’s University.
“The martial law and impeachment crisis not only swayed moderates, but also fractured the conservative base,” Kang said.
Conservative candidate Kim — Yoon’s labor minister — failed to convince a third-party candidate, Lee Jun-seok of the Reform Party, to unify and avoid splitting the right-wing vote.
Yoon’s impeachment over his martial law bid, which saw armed soldiers deployed to parliament, made him the second straight conservative president to be stripped of office after Park Geun-hye in 2017.
Many voters said they had been shocked by his attempt to suspend civilian rule.
It “was the kind of thing done during the old days of dictatorship in our country,” said Park Dong-shin, 79, adding that he cast his ballot for the candidate who would make sure those responsible were “properly dealt with.”
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS