Lee Jae-myung, a longtime liberal politician who recently rebranded himself as a centrist, easily won South Korea’s presidential election Tuesday.
Voters flocked to the polls amid domestic turbulence, questions about the country’s relationship with Trump-era America and growing concerns about an ever-expansive China.
Before the election, Mr. Lee shifted his party, the left-leaning Democratic Party of Korea, to more centrist positions. Once victory was clear, he told reporters outside his house, “I will do my best to fulfill the big responsibility and mission given to me.”
Exit polls by the three main broadcasters found that Mr. Lee won 51.7% of the vote and his conservative opponent, Kim Moon-soo of the People Power Party, trailed with 39.3%. That gap was overstated, but by the time 77% of votes had been officially counted, Mr. Lee was comfortably ahead, with 48% over Mr. Kim’s 43%.
“Our slogan during the election was that we should punish [the PPP] overwhelmingly,” the DPK’s spokesperson told broadcaster YTN around 8:45 p.m. “But today, we must not be arrogant.”
Early tallies of voter turnout reached 79.4%.
The campaign for the five-year presidency was short. President Yoon Suk Yeol of the PPP stunned the nation on Dec. 3 by declaring martial law. His impeachment amid a political crisis triggered the election two years ahead of schedule.
Mr. Lee and Mr. Kim led an all-male field. Mr. Kim’s failure to merge candidacies with other conservatives further undercut a campaign that lagged far behind Mr. Lee’s in opinion polls.
Mr. Lee’s mandate is meaty. Alongside his presidential win, the DPK controls the National Assembly for the next three years, leaving Korean conservatives virtually powerless.
He assumes immediate power Wednesday at the presidential office in the Ministry of National Defense compound.
Mr. Yoon moved the office there from the presidential Blue House. Persistent rumors have it that shamans urged the move because of the dire fates of so many presidents and ex-presidents: exile, assassination, suicide and prison.
Mr. Yoon is battling prosecutors who insist that martial law constituted insurrection. The charge carries potential sentences of life in jail or even death.
Korea’s new president
Mr. Lee, 61, is a formidable persona with a childhood background of deep poverty.
He is a no-nonsense figure and a beneficiary of Mr. Yoon’s blunder. Mr. Lee livestreamed his actions on the night of martial law.
Speeding to the National Assembly, he evaded commandos and police and rallied representatives to vote down martial law three hours after its declaration.
Mr. Lee earned his political chops as a mayor and provincial governor, but he lost the last presidential election against Mr. Yoon by a whisker. Before that, he had lost his party’s primary.
In February, Mr. Lee rebranded the customarily leftist DPK, to raised eyebrows, as “center right.”
On geopolitical touchstones, he has committed to maintaining the U.S. alliance as the cornerstone of national security.
Reversing pro-China reputation
Mr. Lee is a consistent Japan basher but has said, less effusively, that he will not degrade an emerging Seoul-Tokyo-Washington security trilateral.
However, he is unlikely to ignore the divisive Seoul-Tokyo historical disputes that Mr. Yoon shelved.
Alongside conservative suspicions about Mr. Lee’s new political stance, some question his endless but effectively defended legal entanglements on charges such as corruption and funneling money to North Korea.
He has made no secret of his desire to thaw frozen relations with Pyongyang. That may sync with sentiments of President Trump, who in his first term enjoyed a bromance with Kim Jong-un.
Otherwise, U.S. relations look fraught.
Mr. Lee has until July 9 to work out a trade deal before Washington imposes tariffs on Korean products. South Korea has run massive trade surpluses with the U.S. for decades.
On the strategic front, the U.S. prioritizes deterring China over North Korea. Mr. Lee may face pressure from Washington to reduce the number of Korea-based GIs, pay more for their costs and shift their mission from the peninsula to regionwide.
The issues, the voters
Voting day, a sun-drenched public holiday, showcased stability, even jollity. TV broadcasters illustrated exit poll tallies with cartoon avatars of Mr. Lee and Mr. Kim competing in outdoor exercises, football and even a toilet-plunging contest.
Behind these upbeat optics, Mr. Lee’s challenges are multifaceted.
His country is politically polarized.
Mr. Yoon, whose Cabinet appointees had sustained unprecedented impeachments at the hands of the DPK in the National Assembly, said “anti-state forces” were in play and pointed the finger at Chinese electoral interference.
Many conservatives who believe these allegations see Mr. Yoon as a heroic figure who sacrificed himself. They are deeply suspicious of the National Election Commission.
Observers from a private U.S. group, the National Election Integrity Association, reported a number of irregularities in early voting last week, including in vote counting, “that go far beyond plausible human error.” The team, which worked with local observers and conducted site visits, urged the National Election Commission to acknowledge the “gravity” of alleged issues.
The National Election Commission issued two apologies for some early voting issues.
However, Grant Newsham, a member of the four-member National Election Integrity Association team, was not satisfied.
“The NEC had to do something, but these apologies do not get to the fundamental shortcomings of their systems and their total lack of transparency,” he said. “When any claim is made about irregularities, they do not get examined; they stonewall.”
South Korea’s economic and social challenges are intertwined.
The economy has matured, leaving highly educated youths underemployed and unable to acquire homes. South Korea also faces a demographic crisis driven by a tumbling birth rate.
Some fear that 2024 was “Peak Korea,” after which the country’s fortunes, ascendant since the 1960s, will begin a long, slow decline.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Grant Newsham
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
