In victory's flush, Yoon promises national unity

Politics

Published: 10 Mar. 2022, 19:14 Updated: 10 Mar. 2022, 19:30

In victory's flush, Yoon promises national unity

Yoon Suk-yeol of the conservative People Power Party (PPP) holds up bouquets after he was confirmed president-elect early Thursday at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul. [YONHAP]

Yoon Suk-yeol of the conservative People Power Party (PPP) emphasized a message of national unity after being elected Korea's president for the next five years.

Yoon, 61, the first former prosecutor to be elected president, beat his liberal rival Lee Jae-myung by just 0.73 percentage points of the vote.

In Korea's closest presidential election, frontrunners Yoon and Lee of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) were neck-and-neck in exits polls Wednesday evening, making a victor too close to call until nearly all the votes were tallied around 4 a.m.

With 100 percent of the ballots counted a little past 6 a.m., Yoon had 48.56 percent of votes and Lee 47.83 percent, according to the National Election Commission (NEC). Sim Sang-jeung, presidential candidate for the minor progressive Justice Party, trailed with 2.37 percent.

Despite a record early voting turnout of 36.93 percent last Friday and Saturday, overall voter turnout was 77.1 percent out of a total of 44,197,692 voters eligible for the 20th presidential election. This was 0.1 percentage points shy of the 77.2 percent turnout in the 2017 snap presidential election, which resulted in the victory of President Moon Jae-in.

Yoon won 16,394,815 out of 34,067,853 votes cast, just 247,077 more than Lee.

There were over 300,000 invalid ballots, exceeding the difference in the votes for Yoon and Lee.

However, the DP's Lee conceded defeat even before the NEC's tallying ended and congratulated Yoon in a statement read at his party headquarters in Yeouido at around 3:50 a.m.

Shortly afterward, Yoon departed from his home in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul, where he thanked supporters outside who had been there for hours, before heading to the National Assembly, where his campaign had been monitoring the vote count.

"Rather than a victory of the PPP or [electoral ally] Ahn Cheol-soo's People's Party, I believe today's result is a victory of the great people," said Yoon in a speech at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, shortly after his victory was confirmed early Thursday morning.

"Now that the competition is over, we must all work together to become one for the people and the Republic of Korea," the new president-elect said.

He promised to respect the Constitution and parliament and "serve the people while cooperating with the opposition."

Yoon will take office on May 10 for a single, five-year term. He immediately started receiving presidential security starting Thursday.

Yoon visited Seoul National Cemetery in Dongjak District, southern Seoul, Thursday morning in his first official activity as president-elect.

He wrote in the guest log, "We will build a country of unity and prosperity together with our great people."

In his first press conference at the National Assembly later Thursday morning, Yoon said, "I stand before the people as the 20th president-elect with an overwhelmed heart and infinite responsibility."

Rather than looking back, he stressed, "We must work together to resolve issues of national unity and regionalism, so that all regions can develop in a fair and balanced manner."

He added, "I will continue to solely trust the people and only obey the people's will."

Yoon added that the election results reflect "a call for reform, the restoration of justice and common sense as well as the people's desperate appeal for a politics of unity, not division."

He also held a ceremony disbanding his election campaign committee Thursday afternoon attended by some 200 PPP leaders and officials.

"I will always stand on the side of the people," he said at the ceremony. "I will make an honest government that doesn't deceive the people, and become an honest president in front of the people."

Yoon promised a quick launch of his presidential transition committee. His transition team will work to deal with Covid-19 response comprehensively from economic and health standpoints, he said.

Yoon has called for a slimmed-down Blue House, and a move of the presidential office to Gwanghwamun in central Seoul. But the feasibility of that idea is questionable due to security reasons.

After his presidential election victory is effectively confirmed, Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party greets the crowd of supporters who had been waiting overnight in front of his residence in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul, early into Thursday morning, before heading to the National Assembly. [WOO SANG-JO]

The Seoul-born Yoon is an unconventional presidential-elect who is a political outsider hailing from a public prosecutor background.

Yoon blazed his way to victory just eight months after joining politics and declaring his presidential bid last June 29.

A son of educators, Yoon studied law at the prestigious Seoul National University and passed the bar exam on his ninth try.

Yoon served as prosecutor general in the Moon Jae-in administration from 2019 to May 2021 and is best recognized for successfully pursuing high-profile corruption and abuse of power cases involving figures from the previous administrations of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.

He became the unlikely conservative presidential nominee after winning the PPP primary last November, narrowly beating Hong Joon-pyo, the party's nominee in the 2017 presidential election against the DP's Moon.

The path to victory was rocky, as his campaign was riddled with internal feuding and factionalism between Yoon's aides and other party officials, including PPP chief Lee Jun-seok. After plummeting support in opinion polls, Yoon led a major overhaul of his campaign committee in early February, ousting political kingmaker and campaign chief Kim Chong-in while making up with Lee, who had been on the brink of impeachment from the party. After showing a "one-team" image and an ability to accept and learn from criticism, support for Yoon rebounded.

Then, with just six days until the March 9 election, Yoon struck an alliance with Ahn Cheol-soo of the minor opposition People's Party, who had previously proposed and withdrawn a merger offer. Ahn withdrew from the presidential race on March 3 and supported Yoon.

The two agreed to merge their parties after the election. Ahn is expected to take part in the transition and in forming a government. Yoon's election opens up the possibility of Ahn taking a senior administration position such as prime minister.

The conservative PPP made a swift comeback just five years — and one presidential election — after the ouster of President Park Geun-hye for a corruption scandal involving her confidante Choi Soon-sil. The party has worked since to reform its past image.

Yoon has daunting challenges ahead of him, especially with the opposition holding a super-majority in the National Assembly.

"It's very natural for the ruling party to be the minority in a democratic country," Yoon in his press conference Thursday. "It's not unusual for one party to take over the presidential administration and another party to take the lead in the parliament."

He added that this will be an opportunity for the country's democracy and politics "to become much more mature."

The PPP has just 110 sets in the National Assembly, while coalition partner Ahn's People's Party has three, or a total of 113 conservative seats. The DP has 172 seats. The six independent lawmakers are also liberal-leaning.

The PPP was initially confident that it could win against Lee with a larger margin, and analysts point to various factors that led to the narrow race.

PPP Chairman Lee Jun-seok tried to appeal to young male voters in their 20s and 30s with policies that inflamed the gender divide.

Yoon promised to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, a popular idea among young male voters turned off by feminism.

This strategy may have pushed young female voters to vote for Lee.

In an exit poll jointly conducted by the three terrestrial broadcasters, KBS, MBC and SBS, Yoon scored 48.4 percent compared to Lee's 47.8 percent, similar to the actual verdict.

The three broadcasters' exit poll showed a marked division along the gender line of young voters in their 20s, with 58 percent of females in the age group supporting Lee, and 33.8 percent for Yoon, while 58.7 percent of males in that demographic supported Yoon, compared to 36.3 percent for Lee.

The PPP also pledged to draw in over 20 percent support from the Honam region, referring to Gwangju and the Jeolla provinces and traditionally a liberal stronghold, in an attempt to address regionalism. But it failed to do so, even if it did gain more votes from the area than during Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak's races.

The DP's Lee said he sincerely hopes Yoon will become a "successful president" as he disbanded his party's campaign committee Thursday.

"I hope the next government will care for and respect the will of people, and follow the course of history," said Lee at the disbandment ceremony. He said he took full responsibility for his defeat.

President Moon Jae-in called the president-elect Wednesday morning to congratulate him, said a Blue House spokesperson.

Moon said, "It is important to wash away the conflicts and division from the election process and achieve unity so that the people can become one."

Yoon replied, "Please teach me a lot," adding he hopes for a meeting at an early date.

You Young-min, presidential chief of staff, viisted Yoon to convey congratulatory orchids to him later.

U.S. President Joe Biden also congratulated Yoon over the phone just hours after his election victory, the White House said.

"Together, they affirmed the strength of the U.S.-ROK [Republic of Korea] alliance, which is the linchpin for peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific," said the White House in a statement. Biden emphasized Washington's commitment to South Korea's defense and said it "looks forward to working together to deepen cooperation on key global challenges, including climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, and supply chains."

It added that they are also "committed to maintain close coordination on addressing the threats posed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear and missile programs," referring to North Korea's official name.

South Korea's next president, who has no foreign affairs background, will have to deal with geopolitical tensions amid the growing U.S.-China rivalry, soured relations with Japan and a stalemate on North Korean denuclearization.

Yoon's foreign policy vision includes strengthening the South Korea-U.S. strategic alliance and taking a more hardline stance toward North Korea than the Moon government, which should align him more comfortably with Biden.

Yoon said in his press conference that he will deal with North Korea "according to principles," but "will always keep the door for inter-Korean dialogue open."

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida congratulated Yoon and expressed hopes to improve bilateral relations, as the two countries have struggled to overcome historical issues stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea.

Kyodo News reported Thursday that Kishida told reporters, "I intend to closely work with the new president to improve Japan-South Korea ties."

He added, "Japan-South Korea relations are in difficult circumstances, and we cannot leave them as they are."

Yoon has vowed to "develop bilateral relations of mutual respect and create a future-oriented Korea-Japan relationship."

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]