Ex-top prosecutor appears close to winning South Korea election

Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative former top prosecutor, appears close to winning South Korea’s presidential election.

With more than 92% of the ballots counted as of 2:55am on Thursday, Mr Yoon had a narrow lead with 48.64% of the votes compared to Lee Jae-Myung’s 47.8%.

Mr Yoon has been maintaining such a razor-thin lead for a few hours. South Korean media outlets including the country’s biggest TV station, KBS, predicted Mr Yoon will likely win.

The election boiled down to a two-way showdown between Mr Yoon from the opposition People Power Party and Mr Lee from the governing Democratic Party.

They spent months slamming, mocking and demonising each other in one of the most bitter political campaigns in recent memory, aggravating the country’s already severe domestic divisions.

About 44 million South Koreans aged 18 or order were eligible to vote, out of the country’s 52 million people.

About 16 million cast ballots during early voting last week. The tentative turnout was 77.1% after polls closed on Wednesday, the fifth highest ever since the country restored direct presidential elections in 1987 following decades of military dictatorship, according to the National Election Commission.

The winner of Wednesday’s vote will take office in May and serve a single five-year term as leader of the world’s 10th largest economy.

Mr Yoon and Mr Lee have recently agreed that if they won they would not launch politically motivated investigations against the other, but many believe the losing candidate could still face criminal probes over scandals they have been linked to.

Critics say neither candidate has presented a clear strategy for how they would ease the threat from North Korea and its nuclear weapons.

They also say voters are sceptical about how both would handle international relations amid the US-China rivalry and how they would address widening economic inequality and runaway housing prices.

“Despite the significance of this year’s election, the race has centred too much on negative campaigning,” said Jang Seung-Jin, a professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University, adding that neither leading candidate laid out a convincing blueprint on how they would lead South Korea.

The election comes as South Korea has been grappling with an Omicron-driven Covid-19 surge. On Wednesday, health authorities reported 342,446 new virus cases, a record high.

People infected with the coronavirus voted after regular voting ended Wednesday evening.

While Mr Lee and Mr Yoon have some similar economic and welfare policies, they have clashed over North Korea and other foreign policy issues.

Mr Lee, who has often expressed nationalistic views, calls for exemptions to UN sanctions on North Korea so that dormant inter-Korean economic projects can be revived, and hopes to mediate between the North and the US over the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Mr Yoon says he would sternly deal with North Korean provocations and seek to boost trilateral security cooperation with Washington and Tokyo.