South Koreans elected right-wing candidate Yoon Suk-yeol as their new president on Wednesday, Yonhap News Agency reported on Thursday local time in Seoul.
Yoon ran a successful campaign for the presidency as the official nominee of South Korea’s right-wing, opposition People Power Party (PPP). The Korea Herald described Yoon as “the South Korean Trump,” referring to former United States President Donald Trump, in a profile of the conservative politician on March 2. The newspaper offered several parallels between Yoon and Trump that may have contributed to their comparison, including the following:
On top of using anti-China rhetoric, the two also like to speak to their base on social media and announce policies that read like slogans. For example, Yoon’s “Abolish the Gender Equality Ministry” could be compared to Trump’s “Build the Wall.”
Yoon served as South Korea’s prosecutor general from July 2019 to March 2021 under current leftist South Korean President Moon Jae-in. South Koreans elected Moon as their president in May 2017 after he successfully ran for the office as the candidate of South Korea’s left-wing Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). Moon will finish his single, five-year term as president of South Korea on May 10, 2022, clearing the way for Yoon to succeed him in the office.
Yonhap News Agency described the 2022 South Korean presidential election on March 9 — the day of the vote — as a “dead heat” and “too close to call” hours before reporting Yoon’s victory on March 10. Minutes earlier, the news agency revealed Yoon’s opponent in the race, Lee Jae-myung, had “conceded defeat.” Lee ran for the presidency as the official nominee of the left-wing DPK.
Lee’s campaign manager, Song Young-gil, was attacked by a man wielding a hammer during a campaign rally in Seoul on March 7. Song, who is also the DPK’s chairman, suffered minor head injuries requiring stitches during the assault.
“I was struck in the head from behind with a hammer, but luckily it missed fatal parts,” Song wrote on his Facebook page on March 8 after being discharged from a Seoul hospital.
“Since there is no brain hemorrhage, I will leave the hospital and will join the final campaign rallies,” he added.
Police arrested Song’s attacker on March 7, identifying him as a 70-year-old man who ran a South Korean politics-focused YouTube page.
South Korea’s presidential election included early voting from March 4 to March 5. The early balloting drew a record-high turnout of voters.
“More than 16 million, or 36.93 percent, of a total of some 44 million registered voters already cast their ballots in early voting Friday and Saturday [March 4-5],” Yonhap observed on March 9.
“The turnout marked the highest since the early voting system was introduced in 2014. Election officials will add the number to Wednesday [March 9]’s turnout to report overall voter turnout starting at 1 p.m.,” the South Korean news agency reported.
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