Lib­er­al can­di­date Lee Jae-myung is fore­cast to win South Ko­rea’s snap pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, a joint ex­it poll on Tues­day showed, two months af­ter his archri­val and then con­ser­v­a­tive Pres­i­dent Yoon Suk Yeol was re­moved from of­fice over his short-lived im­po­si­tion of mar­tial law.

The ex­it poll by South Ko­rea’s three ma­jor TV sta­tions -– KBS, MBC and SBS -– showed Lee pro­ject­ed to ob­tain 51.7% of the to­tal votes cast, beat­ing con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­date Kim Moon Soo on 39.3%.

Pre-elec­tion sur­veys al­so sug­gest­ed Lee ap­peared head­ed for an easy win, rid­ing on deep pub­lic frus­tra­tion over the con­ser­v­a­tives in the wake of Yoon’s mar­tial law de­ba­cle. Kim has strug­gled to win over mod­er­ate, swing vot­ers as his Peo­ple Pow­er Par­ty re­mains in a quag­mire of in­ter­nal feud­ing over how to view Yoon’s ac­tions.

The elec­tion serves as an­oth­er defin­ing mo­ment in the coun­try’s re­silient democ­ra­cy, but ob­servers wor­ry a do­mes­tic di­vide wors­ened af­ter Yoon’s mar­tial law stunt is far from over and could pose a big po­lit­i­cal bur­den on the new pres­i­dent.

The past six months saw large crowds of peo­ple ral­ly­ing in the streets to ei­ther de­nounce or sup­port Yoon, while a lead­er­ship vac­u­um caused by Yoon’s im­peach­ment and en­su­ing for­mal dis­missal rat­tled the coun­try’s high-lev­el diplo­mat­ic ac­tiv­i­ties and fi­nan­cial mar­kets.

The win­ning can­di­date will im­me­di­ate­ly be sworn in as pres­i­dent Wednes­day for a sin­gle, full term of five years with­out the typ­i­cal two-month tran­si­tion pe­ri­od. The new pres­i­dent will face ma­jor chal­lenges in­clud­ing a slow­ing econ­o­my, U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s Amer­i­ca-first poli­cies and North Ko­rea’s evolv­ing nu­clear threats.

Vot­ing be­gan at 6 a.m. lo­cal time at 14,295 polling sta­tions na­tion­wide, with polls clos­ing at 8 p.m. Ob­servers say the win­ner could ne an­nounced as ear­ly as mid­night.

More than 19 mil­lion peo­ple had cast their bal­lots, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion’s tal­ly as of 8:20 p.m. Com­bined with the 15 mil­lion who vot­ed dur­ing last week’s two-day ear­ly vot­ing pe­ri­od, vot­er turnout stood at 78.4%. South Ko­rea has 44.4 mil­lion el­i­gi­ble vot­ers.

Promise to re­vi­talise the econ­o­my

In a Face­book post­ing on Tues­day, Lee, whose De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty led the leg­isla­tive ef­fort to oust Yoon, called for vot­ers to “de­liv­er a stern and res­olute judge­ment” against the con­ser­v­a­tives over mar­tial law.

In one of his fi­nal cam­paign speech­es Mon­day, Lee ar­gued that a win by Kim would mean the “the re­turn of the re­bel­lion forces, the de­struc­tion of democ­ra­cy and the de­pri­val of peo­ple’s hu­man rights.” He al­so promised to re­vi­talise the econ­o­my, re­duce in­equal­i­ty and ease na­tion­al di­vi­sions. He urged the peo­ple to vote for him,

Kim, a for­mer labour min­is­ter un­der Yoon, warned that a Lee win would al­low him to wield ex­ces­sive pow­er, launch po­lit­i­cal re­tal­i­a­tion against op­po­nents and leg­is­late laws to pro­tect him from var­i­ous le­gal trou­bles, as his par­ty al­ready con­trols par­lia­ment.

Lee “is now try­ing to seize all pow­er in South Ko­rea and es­tab­lish a Hitler-like dic­ta­tor­ship,” Kim told a ral­ly in the south­east­ern city of Bu­san.

Prag­mat­ic diplo­ma­cy

Lee, who served as gov­er­nor of Gyeong­gi province and may­or of Seong­nam city, has been a high­ly di­vi­sive fig­ure in South Ko­re­an pol­i­tics for years.

As a for­mer child labour­er known for his in­spi­ra­tional rags-to-rich­es sto­ry, Lee came to fame through bit­ing crit­i­cism of the coun­try’s con­ser­v­a­tive es­tab­lish­ment and calls to build a more as­sertive South Ko­rea in for­eign pol­i­cy. That rhetoric has giv­en him an im­age as some­one who can in­sti­tute sweep­ing re­forms and fix the coun­try’s deep-seat­ed eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty and cor­rup­tion.

His crit­ics view him as a dan­ger­ous pop­ulist who re­lies on a po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sion and backpedals on promis­es too eas­i­ly.

On for­eign pol­i­cy, Lee has not made any con­tentious re­marks re­cent­ly and has stead­fast­ly vowed to pur­sue prag­mat­ic diplo­ma­cy. He has called South Ko­rea’s al­liance with the U.S. the foun­da­tion of its for­eign pol­i­cy and promised to so­lid­i­fy a tri­lat­er­al Seoul-Wash­ing­ton-Tokyo part­ner­ship, a stance that is not much dif­fer­ent than the po­si­tion held by South Ko­rea’s con­ser­v­a­tives.

Ex­perts say there aren’t many diplo­mat­ic op­tions for South Ko­rea as it tries to ad­dress Trump’s tar­iff hikes and calls for South Ko­rea to pay more for the cost of the U.S. mil­i­tary pres­ence, as well as North Ko­rea’s head­long pur­suit of nu­clear weapons. Ex­perts say that has made both Lee and Kim avoid un­veil­ing am­bi­tious for­eign pol­i­cy goals.

Im­pact of tar­iff hikes

Lee’s gov­ern­ment still could be­come en­gaged in “a lit­tle bit of fric­tion” with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, while Kim’s gov­ern­ment, which pri­ori­tise re­la­tions with Wash­ing­ton, will like­ly of­fer more con­ces­sions to the U.S., said Chung Jin-young, a for­mer dean of the Grad­u­ate School of Pan-Pa­cif­ic In­ter­na­tion­al Stud­ies at South Ko­rea’s Kyung Hee Uni­ver­si­ty.

Chung pre­dict­ed Lee won’t be able to pur­sue over­ly dras­tic steps on for­eign pol­i­cy and se­cu­ri­ty, giv­en the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change and fi­nan­cial mar­kets are very vul­ner­a­ble to such changes.

Lee has preached pa­tience over Trump’s tar­iff pol­i­cy, ar­gu­ing it would be a mis­take to rush ne­go­ti­a­tions in pur­suit of an ear­ly agree­ment with Wash­ing­ton. Kim has said he would meet Trump as soon as pos­si­ble.

On Mon­day, South Ko­re­an trade of­fi­cials held an emer­gency meet­ing to dis­cuss a re­sponse to Trump’s an­nounce­ment that the U.S. will raise tar­iffs on steel and alu­mini­um prod­ucts to 50% be­gin­ning June 4. South Ko­rea’s cen­tral bank last week sharply low­ered its 2025 growth out­look to 0.8%, cit­ing the po­ten­tial im­pact of Trump’s tar­iff hikes and weak do­mes­tic de­mand wors­ened by the po­lit­i­cal tur­moil of past months.

Warmer ties with North Ko­rea?

Re­la­tions with North Ko­rea re­main bad­ly strained since 2019, with the North fo­cused on ex­pand­ing its nu­clear ar­se­nal while re­fus­ing di­a­logues with South Ko­rea and the U.S.

Since his sec­ond term be­gan in Jan­u­ary, Trump has re­peat­ed­ly ex­pressed his in­tent to re­sume diplo­ma­cy with North Ko­re­an leader Kim Jong Un, but Kim has so far ig­nored the of­fer while mak­ing Rus­sia his pri­or­i­ty in for­eign pol­i­cy.

Lee, who wants warmer ties with North Ko­rea, re­cent­ly ac­knowl­edged it would be “very dif­fi­cult” to re­alise a sum­mit with Kim Jong Un any­time soon. Lee said he would sup­port Trump’s push to restart talks with Kim Jong Un, which he be­lieved would even­tu­al­ly al­low South Ko­rea to be in­volved in some projects in North Ko­rea.

For­eign pol­i­cy strate­gists for Lee un­der­stand there isn’t much South Ko­rea can do to bring about a de­nu­cleari­sa­tion of North Ko­rea, said Paik Wooyeal, a pro­fes­sor at Seoul’s Yon­sei Uni­ver­si­ty.

He said Lee al­so doesn’t share the Ko­re­an na­tion­al­is­tic zeal held by ex-lib­er­al Pres­i­dent Moon Jae-in, who met Kim Jong Un three times dur­ing his 2017-22 term.

SEOUL, South Ko­rea (AP) —