South Korea elects president with record turnout. Exit polls show opposition candidate leading

South Koreaʼs snap presidential election is seeing record voter turnout, and exit polls show the lead for the candidate from the main opposition Democratic Party Lee Jae Myung.

This is reported by the South Korean publication Yonhap.

In South Korea, voting for a new president ended at 8:00 p.m. (2:00 PM Kyiv time). Turnout was 78.8%, a record since 1997. 34.7% of voters voted early, on May 29-30, which is slightly less than in the 2022 elections.

Exit polls show victory and 51.7% of the vote for Lee Jae Myung of the Democratic Party. His opponent, Kim Moon Soo of the People Power Party, the political force of former President Yoon Seok Yeol, is gaining 39.3% of the vote.

In his election campaign, Lee Jae Myung focused on the economy, pulling Korea out of the financial crisis, and declaring his opposition to the “greedy establishment”. Lee Jae Myung promised to strengthen South Korea’s defense capabilities and make the country a leader in high-tech industries, a center of culture, and a model democracy. He also promised to reduce tensions with North Korea.

Lee Jae Myung is a 61-year-old lawyer-turned-politician. He lost the last presidential election in 2022 by the narrowest margin in the history of democratic South Korea. That election was won by Yoon Seok Yeol. Now, the Constitutional Court has removed Yoon from office for attempting to impose martial law.

According to Reuters, Koreans are hoping that the new president will be able to overcome the crisis caused by the attempted coup by the previous president, Yoon Seok Yeol. Voters in Seoul have called on the next leader to mitigate differences, restore stability and solve pressing problems, such as the economic crisis.

What Lee Jae Myung said about Ukraine

At the beginning of Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lee Jae Myung condemned Russiaʼs actions and called on South Korea to join the sanctions, as Russia "is not only harming the market economic order, but also causing serious harm to the international economy". At the same time, he claimed that Volodymyr Zelensky had provoked Russia by announcing his intention to join NATO, opposed the initiative to transfer South Korean weapons to Ukraine, and was against sending an inspection team to Ukraine to monitor North Korean troops.

What preceded

On the night of December 3-4, 2024, then-South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol declared martial law in the country to “protect the constitutional order” — the first time since the 1980s. The reason was that the opposition Democratic Party of South Korea, which has a majority in parliament, rejected the government’s budget proposal and decided to impeach the state auditor and the attorney general.

In total, martial law lasted about six hours, but caused an acute internal crisis. In December 2024, Yoon Seok Yeol was informed of suspicion of treason and abuse of power and was banned from traveling abroad. The ex-president was tried to be detained on January 3, 2025, but his bodyguards prevented this, and on January 15, he was still detained on a second attempt. On March 8, it became known that Yoon Seok Yeol had been released from prison. But he still had to stand trial.

In early April, the Constitutional Court reported a unanimous verdict supporting the impeachment of Yoon Seok Yeol and removing him from the presidency. The duties of the president are currently performed by the countryʼs Prime Minister Han Dak Soo. New presidential elections have been scheduled for June 3.

Author: Oleksandr Bulin