Elections in South Korea this week saw the candidate of the conservative People Power Party (PPP), Yoon Suk-yeol, narrowly emerge victorious over challenger Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party.
Yoon won 48.6% of the vote, while Lee managed 47.8%, with fewer than 300 000 votes out of nearly 34 million cast separating the two.
Only one other candidate, Sim Sang-jung of the social democratic Justice Party, received more than one percent of the vote.
Yoon is the former Prosecutor-General of South Korea, a position which he held from 2019 to 2021. Yoon has been described as a right-wing populist by some observers; he has said that he will demand that the United States once again station nuclear weapons in South Korea, and that the minimum wage and restrictions on working hours should be abolished.
Initial analysis shows that Yoon’s win was thanks to a strong swing in support among young people, especially men. Younger South Koreans, who had generally supported the Democratic Party in the past, switched allegiance to the PPP in this election.
Yoon is scheduled to be sworn in in May, making him the 13th person to hold the post of President in South Korea. He will be the first person born after the Korean War to hold the post.
[Image: By 중앙선거관리위원회 – http://info.nec.go.kr/photo_20220309/Gsg1/Hb100138362/gicho/100138362.JPG, KOGL Type 1, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112426026]