The conservative Yoon Suk-yeol is the winner of the elections that took place on March 9 in South Korea. The new president will be sworn in on May 10 and will replace the outgoing Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party, whose candidate Lee Jae-myung was beaten, albeit by measure. Yoon will remain in office for five years, the duration of a single term, as required by the Constitution.
Former Attorney General
Politics novice, 61, a graduate of Seoul National University, where he studies the country’s elite, Yoon served as attorney general under Moon, until he clashed with the outgoing president over the corruption investigations they invested in him. the government. The conservatives have bet on him, counting on riding the indignation of the voters.
Liberal in economics and hawk in foreign policy, he will have to govern a country deeply divided along ideological, generational, income and gender lines, struggling with the difficult post-Covid recovery and the dizzying rise in house prices. On the foreign front, Seoul faces renewed threats from North Korea, in an international context increasingly polarized by China’s aggression. The vote was largely seen as a failed referendum on Moon. High turnout at the polls: 77% of eligible voters voted.
Between Washington and Beijing
South Korea seeks a difficult balance that will allow it to strengthen its relationship with the United States, its main ally, without, however, antagonizing China, its first trading partner. At the same time, Beijing’s aggression pushes it to seek stronger ties with Japan and with other nations that feel threatened. The new president “will have to face an extremely difficult foreign and security policy situation, the struggle for hegemony in the region has reignited”, explains Kim Heung-kyu, director of the US-China Politics Institute at Ajou University .
Yoon said he wanted to buy more missile systems from the US to counter North Korea, despite the risk that this could push China, which feels threatened, into economic retaliation. Yoon would also like to expand consultations with the United States on nuclear deterrence, strengthen the trilateral partnership with Washington and Tokyo and join the Quadrilateral made up of the United States, Australia, Japan and India. The latter is a cooperation openly aimed at containing China and the accession of Seoul can only make Beijing nervous.