S Korean presidential poll overshadowed by tensions
SEOUL: South Korean voters head to the polls to elect a new president on Tuesday, two months after a court upheld the impeachment of former president Park Geun-Hye over a corruption scandal.
Her successor as the leader of Asia’s fourth largest economy will have some difficult decisions to make over the next five years.
The country famed for its technological exports faces growing youth unemployment, high rates of household debt and fear of poverty among the elderly, as well as escalating tensions with its neighbour North Korea over the latter’s nuclear weapons programme.
Observers also believe the election will be a vote on how closely South Koreans want to bind themselves to the US. “There are two key issues in this election,” says North Korea expert Paik Hak-Soon of the Sejong Institute, a political think tank. “One is security, the other is the economy.”
He believes that room for dialogue with an increasingly belligerent North Korea needs to be created.
But the window for that dialogue could shut says Paik, who also acts as an advisor on security issues to centrist candidate Ahn Cheol-Soo, if Pyongyang carries out another nuclear test.
South Koreans also want someone who can guide their country out of the internal crises in which it has become embroiled over the past year.
Following nine years of conservative government, everything indicates the country may be ready for an abrupt change in direction.
Opinion polls give opposition centre-left candidate Moon Jae-In, who was chief of staff under former president Roh Moo-Hyun, a clear lead. It is the 64-year-old former human rights lawyer’s second bid for the presidency — in 2012 he was defeated by Park, the country’s first female president and daughter of the country’s one-time military dictator Park Chung-Hee.
The corruption scandal which led to Park’s impeachment in December and has now led to her being charged with bribery, coercion, abuse of power and leaking state secrets, has also severely damaged the public’s trust in government and her party.
The most recent survey by opinion pollsters Realmeter gave Moon 42.4 per cent of the vote. Former software developer Ahn, of the smaller People’s Party, and Hong Joon-Pyo, of Park’s Liberal Korea Party, came joint second on 18.6 per cent.