Moon Jae-in elected president
Voter turnout 77.2%; Moon wins by landslide in Jeolla provinces
Moon Jae-in of the largest liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) won the presidential election by a large margin Tuesday.
In the snap election following the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye due to a massive corruption and influence-peddling scandal, Moon was far ahead of the conservative Liberty Korea Party’s (LKP) Hong Joon-pyo and Ahn Cheol-soo of the center-left People’s Party as of 11 p.m. after 16.3 percent of the ballots had been counted.
Moon garnered 38.5 percent of the vote while Hong had 27.7 percent and Ahn, 21.2 percent.
Exit polls announced at 8 p.m., once voting ended, showed Moon had 41.1 percent; Hong, 23.3 percent; and Ahn, 21.8 percent.
Yoo Seong-min of the minor conservative Bareun Party gained 6.3 percent and Sim Sang-jung of the minor progressive Justice Party, 5.6 percent.
“If I have won the election as the exit polls suggest, that will be a victory for the people who are desperate to change the government,” Moon said in a speech at the National Assembly. “Today will be the day to start a new Korea. I will undertake the two assignments which the people gave to me of reform and national unity.”
Moon and senior DPK members, as well as his main competitors in the party primary — South Chungcheong Governor An Hee-jung and Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung — joined supporters to watch the ballot counting on TV at Gwanghwamun Square.
Members of the LKP and the People’s Party, on the contrary, wore depressed looks as their candidates’ support lagged far behind Moon. Those of the People’s Party were especially disappointed as the Jeolla and Gwangju regions picked Moon over Ahn.
The total turnout was 77.2 percent including the 26.06 percent who participated in early voting held May 4 and 5. It was higher than 2012’s 75.8 percent, but did not meet the initial expectation of surpassing 80 percent.
The exit polls did not reflect the early voting result.
Moon gained support of more than 50 percent among those in their 30s and 40s, and also the largest support among those in their 20s and 50s, although the rates did not exceed the 50 percent mark.
He also gained most votes from the North and South Jeolla provinces and Gwangju, respectively, the home turf of the liberals. The region was initially expected to be divided between Moon and Ahn, as the latter’s People’s Party is largely based in the region.
People in the North and South Gyeongsang provinces and Daegu, the home turf of the conservatives, preferred Hong as expected.
The National Election Commission will confirm the election result Wednesday morning and the next president’s five-year term will begin immediately. It is likely that the new leader will take the oath of office in a National Assembly hall or at Gwanghwamun Square in the afternoon, skipping the usual grand inauguration ceremony.
Public wish for change
The high support for Moon reflects the public’s wish for a change in government and a new country after the con- servative Park administration’s failure.
The massive corruption scandal involving Park’s longtime friend Choi Soon-sil, which ranged from the business, diplomacy and education to medical, cultural and sports sectors, drew public fury and saw tens of millions of people taking to the streets on cold winter evenings for months to demand her resignation. This finally led to Park’s impeachment and the unprecedented snap election.
An opinion poll in April showed 27.5 percent of people wanted “justice” to be the next government’s top value in state management. They thought it more important than national security or economic growth.
The large vote for Moon indicates people trusted his pledge to clean up “deep-rooted evils,” including inequality in wealth and opportunity, excessive presidential power, and corrupt ties between politics and business, which he said have been perpetrated mainly by the conservatives. Moon himself participated in almost all the candlelit rallies. The huge support indicated people feared that another conservative government would repeat the same old history of corruption, and so they gave a liberal administration the turn to lead the state for a more transparent society.
It was Moon’s second attempt to win the presidency — he narrowly lost to Park in the 2012 election.
Hong, who was confidant of overtaking Moon, failed to do so. Appeal- ing to ultra-right voters, he said Park’s impeachment was wrong and Moon was a North Korea sympathizer — a tactic that was not sufficient to boost his support. But his rate showed many conservative voters still support the LKP — the successor to the former ruling Saenuri Party to which Park belonged — despite the scandal, mainly due to strong anti-Moon sentiment.
Ahn, who once threatened Moon’s lead, was even behind Hong when accounting for the margin of error according to the exit polls. To differentiate him from Moon and win the conservatives’ support, Ahn took a centerleft stance; but this failed to appeal to either conservatives or liberals.
Challenges ahead
The new president faces a task to stabilize the country after more than 150 days of an unprecedented leadership vacuum. Unlike a usual presidential election and inauguration process, the next leader will be sworn in immediately without the two-month transition period.
Right after taking the office, he is expected to appoint presidential secretaries first, as they do not need to undergo National Assembly approval hearings, and then the prime minister and minister nominees in the following days.
Although Moon has experience of state management as the chief of staff for former President Roh Moo-hyun, the stabilizing effort could stumble if the Assembly delays or refuses to approve some of his nominees. The would-be ruling party does not have an overall majority, and the new president will need help from opposition parties in appointing them, as well as in carrying out other state affairs including establishing laws.
Well aware of this, Moon said earlier that if elected, he would visit the opposition parties first. “I’ll acknowledge the opposition parties as partners in state management, and achieve national unity through dialogue,” he said.
The new president will also have to seek unity not only among politicians but also the people, as a generational divide was clearly seen during the election instead of regionalism or an ideological war. The younger generation supported liberal candidates and the older one, conservative hopefuls.
Diplomacy is another challenge amid tension on the Korean Peninsula with the unpredictable North Korean leader Kim Jong-un one side and the likewise unpredictable U.S. President Donald Trump on the other. Although Washington has eased its hard-line stance on using a military option against Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, how the situation will develop and how to resolve the deadlock is still unknown.
Moon called Park’s sanctions-only policy a failure, but experts predict he is unlikely to focus on only dialogue but employ both pressure and negotiations.