Liberal claims victory in South Korea presidential election
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Hours after celebrating his election win with thousands of supporters in wet Seoul streets, newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday will be thrown into the job of navigating a nation deeply split over its future and faced with growing threats from North Korea and an uneasy alliance with the United States.
Moon, whose victory capped one of the most turbulent political stretches in the nation’s recent history and set up its first liberal rule in a decade, will begin his presidential duties after the National Election Commission officially declares him as winner in a meeting scheduled on Wednesday morning. The election body had finished voting as of 6 a.m., with Moon gathering 41 percent of the votes, comfortably edging conservative Hong Joonpyo and centrist Ahn Cheol-soo, who gathered 24 percent and 21 percent of the votes, respectively.
Moon’s first schedule as president was expected to be a morning visit to the National Cemetery in the central city of Daejeon, where the country’s independence fighters and war heroes are buried. He will then return to capital Seoul for an inauguration ceremony at the National Assembly.
South Korea might see a sharp departure from recent policy under Moon, who favors closer ties with North Korea, saying hardline conservative governments did nothing to prevent the North’s development of nuclear-armed missiles and only reduced South Korea’s voice in international efforts to counter North Korea.
This softer approach might put him at odds with South Korea’s biggest ally, the United States. The Trump administration has swung between threats and praise for North Korea’s leader.
Moon, the child of refugees who fled North Korea during the Korean War, will lead a nation shaken by a scandal that felled his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, who sits in a jail cell awaiting a corruption trial later this month.
Moon’s presidency foregoes the usual two-month transition because Tuesday’s vote was a by-election to choose a successor to Park, whose term was to end in February 2018. While this means Moon would have to initially depend on Park’s Cabinet ministers and aides, there were expectations that he would announce his nominee for prime minister, the country’s No. 2 job that needs approval from lawmakers, and also name his presidential chief of staff as early as Wednesday.
Moon will still serve out the typical single five-year term. After exit polls indicated to his victory Tuesday night, Moon smiled and waved his hands above his head as supporters chanted his name at Gwanghwamun square in central Seoul, where millions of Koreans had gathered for months starting late last year in peaceful protests that eventually toppled Park.
“It’s a great victory by a great people,” Moon told the crowd. “I’ll gather all of my energy to build a new nation.”
Over the last six months, millions gathered in protest after corruption allegations surfaced against Park, who was then impeached by parliament, formally removed from office by a court and arrested and indicted by prosecutors.
Moon was chief of staff for the last liberal president, the late Roh Moohyun, who sought closer ties with North Korea by setting up large-scale aid shipments to the North and by working on nowstalled joint economic projects.
Hong, the conservative, is an outspoken former provincial governor who pitched himself as a “strongman,” described the election as a war between ideologies and questioned Moon’s patriotism.
Park’s trial later this month on bribery, extortion and other corruption charges could send her to jail for life if she is convicted.