SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea went to the polls to elect a new president to manage relations with nuclear-armed neighbors China and North Korea, and guide the export-driven economy as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens global growth.
Voting will run through 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at more than 14,000 stations, and exit polling released soon after that should give an early indication of the race between progressive Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party and Yoon Suk-yeol of the main conservative People Power Party.
The vote looks to be the most wide open for president since the advent of full democracy about 35 years ago, with Yoon slightly ahead when the final polls allowed under election law were released last week. The issues of concern for voters are clear in the race for a leader who takes office in May and serves a single five-year term.
Housing prices have doubled in urban centers such as Seoul during the term of outgoing President Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party, while wages have failed to keep pace. This has made home ownership unaffordable for many families over the long term, while inflation unexpectedly accelerated in February, with the turmoil in financial markets caused by Russia’s invasion suggesting there will be little respite for rising prices for the coming months.
Polling stations are under stringent public health measures as the country battles a record wave of coronavirus infections. Health ministry data indicates more than 1 million people are expected to be under some sort of COVID-19 home treatment on election day.
As of 10 a.m., voter turnout reached 11.7% according to the National Election Commission, which was slightly down from 14.1% at the same time in the last election five years ago.
Despite the negative tenor of the campaign, a record 37% of the electorate cast ballots in two days of early voting last week. But the National Election Commission issued an apology for a system it set up for virus protection in which some early voting ballots were collected in shopping bags and paper boxes. This led to worries of irregularities with the count, something the commission assured would not happen.
“Curbing the surging housing prices will be the most important task for the next president,” said a 33-year-old developer who voted in Seoul and declined to give his name.
Former top prosecutor and political newcomer Yoon has pledged to build hundreds of thousands of new housing units, implement a 100-day emergency rescue plan for a COVID-hit economy and close the Gender Equality Ministry — despite South Korea having one of the largest gender-based pay gaps in the developed world.
Yoon was handpicked by Moon in 2019 with a mandate to make good on his pledges to go after the most powerful. But ties soured after Yoon’s probes included members of the current government and led to the resignations of two of Moon’s justice ministers.
Lee, a former factory worker, civil rights lawyer and governor of the country’s most-populous province, has pushed to make the country Asia’s first to introduce universal basic income. Lee has also pledged to build hundreds of thousands of new housing units.
Neither Lee nor Yoon has any significant foreign policy experience. North Korea, meanwhile, has cast a shadow of the race by test-firing a barrage of ballistic missiles weeks before the election and apparently resuming construction for the first time in about four years at the site where it has conducted all of its six nuclear tests.
Yoon has pledged to take a tougher line against Pyongyang and said he sees a preemptive strike against as justified if an attack by the neighbor seems imminent. Lee has backed Moon’s rapprochement policies, vowing to send a special envoy to North Korea and telling voters that building trust with Pyongyang would help bring peace to the peninsula.
Financially battered by the pandemic, people in their 20s and 30s have emerged as the biggest block of swing voters in the race with fewer precedents for how they will vote compared with older generations in the world’s fastest-aging nation.
