The South Koreans began to vote on Tuesday for a new president, limiting six months of political agitation after the disastrous statement of the martial law of former leader Yoon Suk Yeol.
A handful of elderly voters aligned themselves at an electoral table in the Munrae-Dong area of Seoul at 6:00 am to cast their vote.
“We were the first to arrive with the hope that our candidate will be elected, and because the presidential election is the most important,” said Yu Bun-Dol, 80. AFPadding that he was voting for the conservative candidate of the Popular Popular Party (PPP).
Millions have already thrown their vote in the instant elections, with more than a third of the voters registered last week for two days of early voting, said the National Electoral Commission.
All the main surveys have put the Liberal Lee Jae-Myung later, with the latest Gallup survey that shows that 49 percent of respondents saw him as the best candidate.
Kim Moon-Soo, of the conservative PPP, Yoon's old party, followed Lee with 35 percent.
The consequences of the martial law, which has left South Korea indeed without leaders during the first months of the second mandate of US President Donald Trump, is the main concern for voters, experts said.
“Surveys show that the election is largely seen as a referendum about the previous administration,” said Kang Joo-Hyun, a professor of political science at the University of Women Sookmyung. AFP.
“What is particularly surprising is that martial law and the crisis of political judgment not only influenced the moderates, but also fractured the conservative base.”
And analysts say that the conservative party of South Korea is in crisis.
Yoon's dismissal for a disastrous declaration of martial law, which saw armed soldiers deployed in Parliament, made him the second conservative president in being stripped of a position after Park Geun-Hye in 2017.
The conservative candidate Kim also did not convince a third-party candidate, Lee Jun-Seok of the Reform Party, to unify and avoid dividing the right vote.
Crucial moment
“Conservative policy was associated with a competent governance, but now it is difficult to argue that they are still able,” said Kang Won-Taek, a professor of political science at the National University of Seoul.
The Lee Democratic Party already has a parliamentary majority and analysts say that the fractured conservative base will fight in the opposition unless they can solve their problems.
South Korean presidents turn a single five -year period.
With a regular presidential election, there is a period of transition of months, and the term of the new leader begins at midnight after the last day of the predecessor.
But in a rapid election, the winner becomes president as soon as the National Electoral Commission ratifies the vote.
After months of agitation and a rotating door of Duck action leaders, many South Koreans are anxious for the country to advance.
In Gwangju, the spiritual heart of the South Korean left, Jung Se-Yoon, 65, a retired teacher, said the choice was a “turning point.”
“The country will take too long to stand up if we lose this opportunity,” Jung said.
Experts said that the participation of voters was expected to be high.
“The approach will not focus on whether Lee will win, but if it will ensure more than 50 percent of the votes,” Valid Bae Kang-Hoon, co-founder of Think Tank.
“If you manage to do so, it would give you a significant impulse in the impulse to govern as president.”
