Author: GIKorea

As usual Korea has a very impressive voter turn out for their Presidential election:

Voter turnout for South Korea’s presidential election on Tuesday hit a tentative 79.4 percent, the highest in 28 years, the election watchdog said.

Of the total 44.39 million eligible voters nationwide, 35.24 million cast their ballots until 8 p.m., the National Election Commission (NEC) said. 

This includes early voting that took place on Thursday and Friday with a turnout of 34.74 percent, as well as the ballots from overseas, shipboard and absentee voting.

The preliminary voter turnout marked the highest since the 80.7 percent tallied in the 1997 presidential election. Early voting was not held until the 2017 election. 

Tuesday’s vote to choose a successor to ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol began at 6 a.m. at 14,295 polling stations nationwide. 

By region, the southwestern city of Gwangju, a stronghold for the liberal Democratic Party, recorded the highest turnout of 83.9 percent, with the southern Jeju Island logging the lowest at 74.6 percent. Voter turnout for Seoul was 80.1 percent.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like all the opinion polls were correct because Lee Jae-myung won the ROK election by roughly the same amount he had been leading in the polls:

Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea has clinched the presidency, turning the page on six months of relentless political upheaval and a leadership vacuum left by ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s troubled legacy.

The liberal Democratic Party will take power from the conservative People Power Party after a whirlwind 22-day campaign, just three years after the 2022 presidential election. That year, Yoon defeated Lee by the narrowest margin on record—just 0.73 percentage point.

As of 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, with 93.84 percent of the votes counted in Tuesday’s early presidential election, Lee had effectively secured victory with 16,012,324 votes, or 48.77 percent, while Kim trailed with 13,826,777 votes, or 42.11 percent. About 2.18 million ballots remained uncounted at that time.

“I express my respect for the people’s great decision,” Lee said as he left his residence for the party headquarters in Yeouido, after his win was deemed certain by the nation’s major broadcasters just before midnight.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but this election was over the minute that the PPP could not get third party candidate Lee Jun-seok to unify with Kim Moon-soo. If they had a combined ticket they had a chance of defeating Lee Jae-myung, but they both chose mutual defeat instead and will now will have to suffer the consequences of handing pretty much all levers of power to the DPK.

This is one of those stories where someone from America is just amazed that coordinated comment campaigns against another candidate may be a crime in Korea:

A wave of accusations of online opinion manipulation by a conservative education organization has gripped the final days of the presidential election campaign as the nation gears up to elect its new leader this week.

Last week, the online news outlet Newstapa reported that the education group Rhee Park School has been operating a team of online commenters to sway public opinion in favor of conservative People Power Party (PPP) candidate Kim Moon-soo and against liberal Democratic Party (DP) candidate Lee Jae-myung.

The team allegedly instructed its members to write online comments praising Kim as well as ones critical of Lee in a coordinated manner, according to Newstapa.

In response, the DP has filed a complaint against the “far-right” group, named after former Presidents Rhee Syng-man and Park Chung-hee, who are revered in conservative circles, with police launching an investigation into the case.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but political activist groups in the U.S. are solely dedicated to influencing online opinion with misleading information and bot farms. Here is what the likely next President of Korea had to say about these claims:

DP candidate Lee Jae-myung has called the allegations an act of “insurrection” that destroys the constitutional order while suggesting the PPP’s possible involvement in the alleged opinion rigging.

“It does not make sense that the PPP is not involved. I think there is a clear connection,” Lee told reporters Monday. “By praising PPP candidate Kim Moon-soo and disparaging Lee Jae-myung, (they) conducted a political attack by spreading false information, with Kim and the PPP reaping the benefits.”

Judging by his rhetoric it looks like Lee after he is likely elected President will use these claims to launch prosecutions against PPP figures.

At least they caught her for voting twice, but it does make you wonder how much more of this is going on?:

A Seoul court on Sunday approved a warrant to arrest a woman suspected of voting twice during early voting last week, including once by proxy for her husband, a court official said. 

The Seoul Central District Court issued the writ against the woman, only identified by her last name Park, citing the risks of her destroying evidence and fleeing. 

Park, a contract worker at the Gangnam Ward Office’s health center, is accused of casting ballots twice, once using her husband’s identity, on the first day of early voting on Thursday. She cast her own vote five hours later. 

For the early voting period, she had been appointed to a post responsible for issuing ballot papers to voters.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I think any decision to reduce USFK troop numbers will be highly dependent on the ROK government supporting U.S. troops being used for off peninsula contingencies:

Deputy Defense Minister for Policy Cho Chang-rae (R) and U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) (C) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) pose for a photo during their talks on May 31, 2025, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual defense forum in Singapore, in this photo provided by South Korea’s defense ministry.

A senior South Korean defense official has underscored the importance of maintaining the current troop level of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) during meetings with U.S. lawmakers Saturday, the South’s defense ministry said.

The move came amid speculation that the United States may partially pull out the USFK to seek “strategic flexibility” to better deal with an assertive China.

Deputy Defense Minister for Policy Cho Chang-rae made the point as he met with U.S. congressional delegations representing the Senate and the House of Representatives, respectively, on the margins of the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual defense forum in Singapore. Cho attended the gathering instead of acting Defense Minister Kim Seon-ho.

In the talks, Cho emphasized the South Korean military and the USFK should continue to work together to maintain regional peace and stability by enhancing deterrence against North Korea on the Korean Peninsula on the back of a firm combined defense posture, the ministry said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The article is claiming declining voter turn out is bad news for the conservative Presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo. I think this is because many conservatives voter know the race was lost when Kim Moon-soo could not create a combined ticket with Lee Jun-seok and are staying home. With liberals united around Lee Jae-myung the conservatives unless something extraordinary happens, have no way to win this election with a divided vote:

Public officials on May 30 move boxes filled with ballots cast during the presidential election’s early voting period in Seoul. [YONHAP]

“Early voting turnout in the Daegu-North Gyeongsang region had dropped compared to the last presidential election — from 37.66 percent to 28.69 percent — despite both major parties encouraging early voting because voter sentiment has not solidified as much as expected,” said Cho Gwi-dong, head of political strategy at Min Political Consulting. 
  
“The real variable is how many of these disheartened voters can be mobilized for Election Day.” 
  
Much also depends on whether swing voters and anti-Lee Jae-myung conservatives gravitate toward People Power Party (PPP) candidate Kim Moon-soo or Reform Party candidate Lee Jun-seok. Analysts suggest these voters remain undecided, caught between a “bandwagon effect” favoring the perceived front-runner and an “underdog effect” that draws support to a surging outsider. 
  
“This election is fundamentally unfavorable to the PPP because it was the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol that led to the snap election in the first place,” said Lee Jae-mook, a professor of political science at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.