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South Korea's new president faces host of challenges

Yoon Suk-yeol, a baptized Catholic, is expected to carry on with the commitment to the US alliance
South Korea's new president faces host of challenges

South Korea's new president Yoon Suk-yeol of the main opposition People Power Party gestures to his supporters during an election campaign rally in Seoul on March 8. (Photo: AFP)

Published: March 11, 2022 10:35 AM GMT
Updated: March 12, 2022 04:33 AM GMT

Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative former top prosecutor, was declared winner in South Korea’s presidential polls on March 10, defeating a liberal rival in one of the most closely fought polls in the country's history.

With more than 98 percent of the ballots counted, Yoon managed to secure 48.6 percent of votes against his rival Lee Jae-myung’s 47.8 percent. Both candidates spent months mocking and demonizing each other in a bitter political campaign.

Yoon will take office in May as leader of the world’s 10th-largest economy to serve a single five-year term.

In his first public action, after he became the presidential candidate for the People Power Party last October, he visited Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul on a Sunday, sang hymns and prayed with the congregation. Media reports said the move was to attract Christian votes and silence critics who said he followed shamanism.

He was baptized with the name Ambroise in the Catholic Church but he does not practice his faith life in any parish community, according to Church sources. 

Christianity has emerged as the largest religion in South Korea and is followed by some 28 percent of its 51 million people, according to the 2015 national census. A larger group, some 56 percent, follows no religion at all. Some 15 percent follow Buddhism, making it the second-largest religion in the country.

In the run-up to the election, Yoon promised to deal sternly with provocations by North Korea and to boost trilateral security ties with Washington and Tokyo.

"Yoon will shape Asia's fourth-largest economy riven by gender and generational divides, face a confrontational North Korea and guide the country's rising status in the world"

When North Korea launched ballistic missiles on March 5, a day after the polls started, Yoon, a prosecutor general who resigned and joined the opposition last year, accused North Korean leader Kim Jong-un of trying to influence the results in favor of the opposition candidate.

Yoon will shape Asia's fourth-largest economy riven by gender and generational divides, face a confrontational North Korea and guide the country's rising status in the world.

South Korea’s geographical location has already made it a lynchpin of the US administration’s anti-China campaign. The US perceives South Korea as a force multiplier whose military personnel and wherewithal could be freely used in the Asia-Pacific region and even beyond the Korean Peninsula.

Since its hegemonic rivalry with China is not going to end in the near future, the US will never leave South Korea alone and Yoon will have to play a leading role in the US-led regional containment coalition.

The US containment policy against North Korea is the main roadblock to peace on the Korean Peninsula. Washington is not in the mood to roll back sanctions and restore trade relations and has been staging provocative military drills aimed at the communist North. So, denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula has become a cry in the wilderness.

Because of the geopolitical constraints, South Korea’s foreign policy may not change markedly as Yoon will be forced to carry on with the commitment to the US alliance, mainly aimed at containing China. Yoon’s administration will be more hawkish and combative toward North Korea and China.

More than 61 percent of South Korea's 44 million eligible voters headed to polling stations on March 9 to elect a new president in an election that started on March 4.

The poll campaign was marked by surprises, scandals and smears, but the policy stakes are high for the new president and the country's 52 million residents for the next five years.

"North Korea remains a major issue as Pyongyang has carried out a record-breaking blitz of weapon tests recently, including a launch just a few days before the polls and during the voting period"

The main concerns among young voters, who proved decisive, are rising housing prices in the capital Seoul, domestic inequality and unemployment.

North Korea remains a major issue as Pyongyang has carried out a record-breaking blitz of weapon tests recently, including a launch just a few days before the polls and during the voting period. Yoon will face a tough task in initiating talks to curb the North's nuclear ambitions.

South Korea conducted the polls in the grip of an Omicron Covid-19 wave, with more than 200,000 new infections being recorded most days this month.

More than a million people were isolated at home after testing positive. The country made amendments to its electoral laws last month to make sure Covid-19 patients were able to vote at isolated booths. They were given an hour at the end of the second-day voting and an hour and a half on March 9.

Amid the surge in Omicron infections, the country reported a new record daily high of 342,446 cases on March 9, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said.

The country reported an additional 158 deaths from the virus, the agency added. As of March 9, South Korea had reported 5,212,118 confirmed cases with 9,440 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

Although the government's pandemic management was not a poll issue, the spike in infections in the past week affected the voting pattern. The immediate challenge before Yoon is the Omicron-driven surge in Covid-19 infections.

* The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.

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