South Korea has a new president: Yoon Suk-yeol
Voting closed last night at 7.30pm local time (11.30pm NZT) after a close race between the liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung from the ruling Democratic Party and Yoon Suk-yeol, the opposition candidate from the conservative People Power Party.
Lee conceded the race to Yoon on Thursday morning (NZT), with 98 percent of the votes counted – Yoon had 48.6 percent of the vote, 0.8 percentage points ahead of Lee.
Yoon Suk-yeol has been elected president of South Korea. Image: Facebook
Yoon Suk-yeol will come into power in May 2022, replacing current Democratic Party president Moon Jae-in.
It was a presidential race that was plagued with scandals on everything from corruption to spiritual advisers and was even framed as a race between US liberal politician Bernie Sanders (Lee) and ex-US president Donald Trump (Yoon).
It was also a race watched closely by countries abroad, namely the US, China, and as always, North Korea.
South Korea's new president and his policies
Yoon Suk-yeol famously earned the name ‘Korea’s Donald Trump’ during the election race, following comparisons to the ex-US president’s mannerisms and anti-China stance.
Yoon is new to politics but has built himself a reputation as South Korea’s top prosecutor. He rose to fame in 2016 after leading investigations of corruption by former president Park Geun-hye.
In 2019, he was appointed prosecutor-general by president Moon Jae-in, a position he held until 2021 when he was announced as the conservative PPP candidate.
Yoon is new to politics, but built himself a reputation built on his time as prosecutor-general and his experience in the legal branch. Image: Facebook
Housing has been one of the big issues of the election and under Moon’s term, house prices rose to an all-time high. Yoon promises to reverse this, by supplying 2.5 million new homes in his term, expanding opportunities to get loans, and providing tax relief measures encouraging multiple homeowners to sell off properties.
Gender equality featured heavily in the last stretch of the election, as both candidates aimed to catch the vote of young swing voters. Young women have tended to vote for the liberal Democratic Party, while young men vote for the more conservative PPP. The election race has been heavily coloured by a rising anti-feminism backlash, primarily from young men and both presidential candidates have been accused of pandering to this group. Yoon was clear on which group he courted, especially when he made headlines in early 2022 by pledging to abolish South Korea’s Ministry of Gender and Family, on the grounds it created a division between men and women.
When it comes to foreign policy, South Korea has often faced a tricky balance between the superpowers of China and the US. Foreign Policy describes it as a choice for South Korea between alliance-shared values and economic interests - essentially “the United States for security and China for economy”. Moon opted for balancing South Korea’s relationships but Yoon’s views differ strongly. Rather than balancing between Beijing and Washington, Yoon has said he would pursue a stronger alliance with the US. In broader regional settings, Yoon proposed working more closely with both the Five Eyes information sharing group and the QUAD, a US-led initiative.
On North Korea, again diverging from long-standing Democratic Party views, Yoon has promoted greater cooperation with the US as a security measure. This would include military exercises between South Korea and the US, and would also increase South Korea’s capability to launch a pre-emptive strike. Denuclearisation is still the top priority however, with these security measures taken as precautions. Yoon also supports creating a standard dialogue channel between both Koreas and the US.
Reaction to the election:
Yoon Suk-yeol elected president by fine margin I The Korea Herald
South Korean opposition candidate Yoon elected president I Channel News Asia
Chronology of major events in President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's biography I Yonhap News Agency
