South Korea’s conservative presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo has conceded defeat in the June 3 snap election.
Kim told a press conference early on Wednesday that he had congratulated his opponent, liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung, on his election victory.
A president’s duty
Minutes earlier, Lee in his victory speech said that he would not forget the duty of a president to unite the people.
Lee, speaking to his supporters gathered outside parliament, also said he would find a way for the country to coexist with North Korea by means of dialogue and communication.
Political sea change
Lee led with more than 85 percent of the votes counted in Tuesday’s snap presidential election, six months to the day after he evaded military cordons to vote against a shock martial law decree.
Lee’s victory stands to usher in a political sea change in Asia’s fourth-largest economy, after the backlash against the martial law brought down Yoon Suk-yeol, the conservative outsider who narrowly beat Lee in the 2022 election.
Nearly 80 percent of South Korea’s 44.39 million eligible voters cast their ballots, the highest turnout for a presidential election in the country since 1997, with Lee terming the polls “judgment day” against Yoon’s martial law and the PPP’s failure to distance itself from that decision.
Preliminary vote tallies and exit polls by the country’s major broadcasters had Lee defeating Kim by comfortable margins.
A joint exit poll by broadcasters KBS, MBC and SBS, which has in previous elections mostly been in line with the final results, put Lee on 51.7 percent and Kim on 39.3 percent.
A separate survey by broadcaster JTBC put Lee on 50.6 percent and Kim on 39.4 percent. Channel A also predicted a Lee win by similar margins. Reuters has not independently confirmed the results of the surveys.
