At the end of an extremely polarized election, the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol, 61 years old a former attorney general, novice in politics, was elected president of South Korea on Thursday, narrowly defeating the candidate of the center-party. left in power.
Yoon Suk-yeol, the candidate of the People’s Power Party (PPP), the main right-wing opposition party, won with 48.59% of the vote once morest 47.79% for his rival from the Democratic Party Lee Jae-myung, according to results covering 98% of the votes published by the Yonhap news agency.
The South Korean presidential election has only one round. The winner had campaigned by proposing a relaxation of labor law, aimed in particular at the minimum wage and the maximum working time. He also advocates firmness with regard to North Korea.
“This is the victory of the great South Korean people”, launched the winner in front of his jubilant supporters, gathered at dawn in the National Assembly. Yoon Suk-yeol’s victory over the wire marks a spectacular comeback for the PPP, hard hit in 2017 by the dismissal and then the imprisonment for abuse of power of President Park Gung-hye, who belonged to this formation. Paradoxically, while he was a prosecutor in Seoul, he had played a key role in the investigation which had led to the fall of the leader.
All former South Korean presidents sentenced for corruption
Analysts say Wednesday’s presidential outcome might rekindle what the media have dubbed the “revenge cycle,” a feature of the extreme polarization of political life in this country of 52 million people: all ex-South Korean presidents still alive have served time in prison for corruption at the end of their terms of office.
Yoon Suk-yeol will succeed incumbent President Moon Jae-in for five years in May, who might not be represented. He promised to order an investigation into his predecessor – who had appointed him attorney general at the beginning of his term – without specifying the reasons.
Leftist candidate Lee Jae-myung admitted defeat. “I did my best, but I didn’t live up to expectations,” Lee told his Democratic Party supporters. “It is neither your defeat nor that of the Democratic Party. All responsibility rests exclusively with me,” he added.
An “election between losers”
Turnout in Wednesday’s election stood at 77.1%, confirming strong voter interest despite a campaign marred by scandals, verbal abuse and poor debate between the two favorites too unpopular with each other. The South Korean media had dubbed this election “the election between losers”.
This strong participation comes even as South Korea is hit hard by the pandemic, with more than 340,000 new cases of Covid-19 recorded on Wednesday and more than a million patients in isolation at home. The electoral law had been arranged so that Covid patients might vote separately for 90 minutes following the polls closed for the rest of the population.
