S. Korea elects liberal as president Winner favours closer ties with North Korea
SEOUL • Moon Jae-in declared victory in South Korea’s presidential election Tuesday after his two main rivals conceded, capping one of the most turbulent political stretches in the country’s recent history and setting up its first liberal rule in a decade.
Moon, a liberal former human rights lawyer who was jailed as a student by a previous dictatorship, favours closer ties with North Korea, saying hard-line 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.
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 this month.
Tuesday’s election saw strong turnout — about 77 per cent of 42.5 million eligible voters. Moon had a relatively low share of the total vote — 41.4 per cent according to an exit poll — but there were more major candidates than in 2012, when Park won 51.5 per cent, beating Moon by about a million votes.
Over the last six months, millions gathered in protest after corruption allegations surfaced against Park, who was then impeached by parliament, removed from office by a court and arrested and indicted by prosecutors.
Moon’s two biggest rivals, conservative Hong Joon-pyo and centrist Ahn Cheol-soo, were expected to garner 23.3 per cent and 21.8 per cent, respectively.
Moon was chief of staff for the last liberal president, the late Roh Moo-hyun, who sought closer ties with North Korea by setting up largescale aid shipments to the North and by working on now-stalled joint economic projects. Many analysts say Moon likely won’t pursue drastic rapprochement policies because North Korea’s nuclear program has progressed significantly.
A big challenge will be U.S. President Donald Trump, who has proven unconventional in his approach to North Korea, swinging between intense pressure and threats and offers to talk.
“South Koreans are more concerned that Trump, rather than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will make a rash military move ... It is crucial that Trump and the next South Korean president strike up instant, positive chemistry,” Duyeon Kim, a visiting fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs magazine.