Liberal Moon claims victory in S. Korea presidential election

Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea

Hours after celebrating his election win with thousands of supporters in wet Seoul streets, newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in today will be thrown into the job of navigating a nation deeply split over its future and faced with growing threats from North Korea and an uneasy alliance with the United States.

Moon, whose victory capped one of the most turbulent political stretches in the nation’s recent history and set up its first liberal rule in a decade began his presidential duties this morning.

The National Election Commission finished counting votes earlier today and said Moon gathered 41 percent of the votes.

“The National Election Commission, based on the first clause of Article 187 of the Public Official Election Law, determines that the Democratic Party’s Moon Jae-in, who gathered the largest number of valid votes, was elected as president,” NEC Chairman Kim Yong-deok said in the televised meeting.

Moon’s first schedule as president was expected to be a visit to the National Cemetery in the central city of Daejeon, where the country’s independence fighters and war heroes are buried. He will then return to capital Seoul for an inauguration ceremony at the National Assembly.

South Korea might see a sharp departure from recent policy under Moon, who favors closer ties with North Korea, saying hard-line conservative governments did nothing to prevent the North’s development of nuclear-armed missiles and only reduced South Korea’s voice in international efforts to counter North Korea.

This softer approach might put him at odds with South Korea’s biggest ally, the United States.

Moon, the child of refugees who fled North Korea during the Korean War, will lead a nation shaken by a scandal that felled his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, who sits in a jail cell awaiting a corruption trial later this month.