Yoon Suk-yeol Wins ROK Presidential Election; What Will Be North Korea’s Reaction?
Congratulations to Yoon Suk-yeol on winning an extremely close ROK Presidential election:
![Yoon Suk-yeol of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) cheers as he accepts his victory after winning Korea’s presidential election early morning Thursday, at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul. [YONHAP]](https://i0.wp.com/koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2022/03/10/79794075-7f6d-41cd-a82d-8c774c57c8e7.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
Yoon Suk-yeol of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) was elected as Korea’s next president early Thursday morning, narrowly beating his liberal rival.
Joong Ang Ilbo
Yoon, the first former prosecutor to be elected as president, stressed a message of national unity and cooperation with the opposition in a speech at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, shortly after his victory was ascertained.
In Korea’s closest presidential election, frontrunners Yoon and Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) were neck-and-neck in exits polls Wednesday evening, making a victor too close to call nearly all the votes were tallied around 4 a.m. Thursday.
At 4:05 a.m., with 98.15 percent of the ballots counted, Yoon earned 48.59 percent of votes, effectively confirming his victory in the 20th presidential election. Lee received 47.8 percent of votes, just 0.8 percentage points less than Yoon.
You can read more at the link, but it will now be interesting to see what position Ahn Cheol-soo receives because it is arguable that his coalition with Yoon put him over the top to win the Presidency.
Additionally we will need to wait and see what the reaction from North Korea will be. Considering Yoon’s hardline rhetoric towards North Korea during the campaign it seems the Kim regime is likely to go bigger on whatever provocation they have planned. There has been reports of North Korea preparing for a nuclear test so this could be their response if preparations are complete. If not another ICBM or other missile tests would be a near term way for them to respond to Yoon’s election.
If Lee had won, you would have commented.
“Lee wins the election, will South Korea be taken over by North Korea and China? Let’s not even find out, US should just pack up and leave”
It doesn’t matter who is elected.
North Korea will poke at South Korea on orders from China so they can take USFK/USFJ attention away from Taiwan.
Yoon’s response will make it easier to escalate and blame South Korea.
nK will have a congratulatory fireworks show I am sure. Lucky, this time the commies could get the cheat quite right. Talking to Koreans here the gap should have been much wider….
Well, considering that Pres. Moon made a lot of people angry because of his policy missteps, the election of Yoon is not surprising.
And Pres. Moon is the one who will have to carry the baggage of responsibility for wasting the political capital gained during the first years of his presidency and pretty much handing the PPP the Blue House in addition to the mayorships of Seoul and Busan.
It will be an interesting five years for Korea and the Wespac region as a whole, considering that the new President might not be the type to restrain himself if the leader of the DPRK decides to pop a few.
It will also be interesting to see if he will keep his promises that helped him get elected such as getting rid of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family(favored by the twentysomething male crowd), cutting real estate taxes(probably the reason why a majority of Seoul residents voted for him), and going after Pres. Moon and his people(favored by the senior citizen Park fan crowd).
For us here in the ROK Drop, I guess we can see a lot less of whinings about alleged left-wing conspiracies to hand over the ROK to the PRC and have the USFK leave the ROK.
Looking forward to seeing Lee Jail Myung going to prison. Might get a 2 for 1 with Commie moon joining him.
I wonder if the masks and all the related nonsense will go away now?
They blew up the mountain. The mountain imploded. Where are they going to do a nuclear test?
Field Marshal Kim is hardly Admiral Rickover.