South Korea's Lee Jae-myung sworn in as new president

South Korea's new president Lee Jae-myung has taken the oath of office.

He was sworn in at an abbreviated inauguration ceremony on Wednesday morning local time at the National Assembly in the capital, Seoul.

In a speech following his inauguration, he vowed to restore South Korea's flagging economy and build a bridge of reconciliation.

The new president and his liberal Democratic Party government inherit an economy that is expected to grow this year by a only 0.8%, the weakest since 2020.

It will also need to unify a country deeply polarised by impeached former President Yoon Suk Yeol's attempt to impose martial law in December, 2024.

In his speech, Lee stressed that was time to restore democracy after the "martial law crisis."

He also said he would seek dialogue with North Korea to secure peace on the Korean peninsula.

"No matter how costly, peace is better than war," he said.

In a statement to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, a US official said on Tuesday that South Korea's election was "free and fair."

But the official said that the United States "remained concerned and opposed to Chinese interference and influence in democracies around the world."

China is South Korea's largest trading partner. 

Under impeached former President Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea's relations with China became increasingly strained while Yoon's foreign policy "significantly bolstered ties to Washington," according to UK think tank Chatham House.

It was "unprecedented" for the White House to include China in comments on South Korea's election, Korea'sKBS public broadcaster noted in an article published on Wednesday. 

Experts interpret the comments as the Trump administration making it clear that the South Korea-US alliance will remain strong under new President Lee Jae-myung, KBS writes, "while indirectly requesting the new South Korean government to distance itself from China."

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated President Lee Jae-myung. 

"The United States and the Republic of Korea share an ironclad commitment to the alliance grounded in our Mutual Defense Treaty, shared values and deep economic ties," Rubio said in a statement. 

South Korea's election authority has officially confirmed Lee Jae-myung the country's new president. 

"The presidential term begins the moment the winner is confirmed, so I will now confirm the time. The current time is 6:21 a.m. (21:21 UST)," National Election Commission (NEC) chairperson Roh Tae-ak said.

"The National Election Commission hereby declares Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party as the elected president," he said.

South Korea normally has a 60-day transition period for its presidents.

But because the country was governed by an acting president after the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, in this case Lee took power the moment his victory was confirmed by the NEC.

Lee Jae-myung, the incoming president of South Korea, has had a life full of ups and downs. Starting out as a child laborer, he rose to the top of South Korean leadership.

Lee's family couldn't afford his secondary education, so after graduating from an elementary school, he had to work at various factories in Seongnam, a city near Seoul.

At a factory manufacturing baseball gloves, he had his left forearm crushed by a press machine, which resulted in a permanent arm disability. Desperate, Lee twice attempted suicide.

But despite his difficult start, Lee entered Seoul's Chung-Ang University on a full scholarship before becoming a human rights lawyer.

"Hopes and ordeals always come together. The roles of ordeals are not getting people to surrender, but testing how serious and desperate their hopes are," Lee wrote in a memoir published in 2017.

Lee entered politics in 2005, unsuccessfully contesting a few elections.

In 2010, he was elected mayor of Seongnam and was re-elected in 2014. He later served as governor of Gyeonggi Province, the country's most populous region surrounding the capital, for more than three years.

In 2022, Lee's presidential bid fell short, with him losing to Yoon Suk Yeol by a margin that was among the narrowest in South Korean electoral history.

Lee has also faced legal troubles, including corruption allegations related to a real estate development project and election law violations involving the dissemination of false information.

He has denied any wrongdoing, insisting the charges are politically motivated.

According to legal experts, with Lee's victory, the proceedings are set to be suspended due to presidential immunity and will only resume after his single five-year term ends in 2030.

South Korea's main conservative candidate Kim Moon Soo conceded defeat in the presidential election.

He told a news conference Wednesday morning that he "humbly accepts (the) people's choice" and congratulates his liberal rival Lee Jae-myung for winning the election.

Lee said that he thanked voters and would work to "not to disappoint the expectations of our people."

Before Kim conceded, preliminary vote tallies and exit polls from the country's major broadcasters showed Lee winning by a comfortable margin.

With more than 86% of ballots counted  Lee led with more than 48% of votes and Kim had 42.7%.

Six months ago, former President Yoon Suk Yeol — who belongs to the same conservative People Power Party (PPP) as Kim — unleashed a political crisis by declaring martial law. He was impeached and removed from office, triggering the election. 

Addressing those in the opposing camp, Lee said that he would "move forward with hope and make a fresh start from this moment on."

Lee will take office after the National Election Commission finishes counting the votes and validates the result, which will likely happen early Wednesday.

A joint exit poll conducted by South Korean broadcasters KBS, MBC and SBS on Tuesday suggests that liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung will win the country's presidential election. 

The most recent tabulations, with about 78% of votes counted, have Lee taking 51.7% of the tally and conservative challenger Kim Moon Soo scooping up 39.3%.

A spokesman for Lee's Democratic Party said voters had issued "a fiery judgement" of the previous government. 

A co-chair from the Conservative party expressed "shock" at the result.

Some 44.4 million South Korean's are heading to the polls to cast ballots this Tuesday in a snap presidential election.

The vote was prompted when Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted for attempting to establish martial law in December.

Yoon's archrival, left-leaning Lee Jae-myung is favored to win the vote. Conservative candidate Kim Moon Soo has failed to win over voters as his party spirals amid infighting.

Voting at South Korea's 14,295 polling stations began at 6:00 a.m. local time (2130 previous day GMT) and will continue until 8:00 p.m.

So far, roughly 71.5% of South Koreans have cast ballots.   

Observers say the results of the vote could be known by midnight.

US President Donald Trump's trade war is expected to be one of the top priorities for South Korea's next president.

Officials in Seoul held an emergency meeting late on Monday in response to Trump's announcement that tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will be raised to 50% starting June 4.

"We're going to bring it from 25% to 50%, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry," Trump said on Friday, announcing the hike. "Nobody's going to get around that."

Trump's announcement sent shares of South Korean steelmakers slumping. POSCO and Hyundai Steel both dropped 3%, while SeAH Steel Corp plunged 8%.

South Korea's Industry Ministry convened with major steel producers, including POSCO and Hyundai Steel, to assess the potential impact.              

The Asian country was the fourth-largest exporter of steel to the US last year.

Last week, South Korea's central bank slashed its 2025 growth forecast to 0.8%, citing US trade tariffs and weak domestic demand amid political turmoil.

Lee Jae-myung is widely expected to win South Korea's presidential election. 

But he is facing charges — for a second time — of violating election laws in his 2022 presidential campaign. 

Prosecutors appealed to retry Lee after the constitutional court overturned his original conviction. 

But the high court in Many then postponed Lee's trial until June 18, which is two weeks after the election.

If his original conviction had been upheld, Lee wouldn't have been eligible to run for president. 

The case is just one of five that Lee is currently fighting.

For more details on the twists and turns of Lee's legal drama, and what this means for South Korea's democracy, check out this analysis by DW's Julian Ryall. 

Impeached former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife Kim Keon Hee have voted at a school near their private residence in the capital, Seoul

They were accompanied by security guards, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. 

Neither made any comment to the waiting media, with Yoon turning to smile at the press as they peppered him with questions. 

It was the first time that Yoon's wife had been seen in public for more than 50 days. 

Yoon was formally stripped of his office in April after being impeached and suspended for imposing martial law in December. 

He attended his fifth court hearing last week over charges of leading an insurrection and abuse of power for declaring martial law on December 3, 2024. 

The winner of South Korea's presidential election will immediately face foreign policy challenges dealing with the United States and China.

The Asian country is already under pressure on trade and security issues from the Trump administration, even though the United States is its most important ally against North Korea.

At the same time, South Korea has to walk a fine line with China, South Korea's top trading partner.

"The winner is going to face a lot of big issues very quickly," said Chinese foreign policy expert Choo Jae-woo, from Seoul's Kyung Hee University.

Read more in this analysis of the foreign policy issues facing South Korea by DW's Julian Ryall.

South Korea is one of the world's most developed and wealthiest nations. But it lags significantly behind in women's rights. 

South Korea ranks a lowly 112th out of 146 countries for economic participation and 100th for women's education attainment in the World Economic Forum's most recent Global Gender Gap rankings. 

And not one woman is among the five presidential candidates running in today's election.

That makes the 2025 vote South Korea's first in 18 years to have all male candidates.

Previous elections seen anti-feminist sentiment

Ousted president Yoon Suk Yeol ran on an explicitly anti-feminist agenda, including a promise to scrap the Ministry of Gender Equality. His government removed the term "gender equality" from the national school curriculum. 

Rallies in support of Yoon during his suspension from power unsurprisingly saw a large number of young men. 

And women were at the forefront of the anti-Yoon protests that spread across South Korea in December.

Women hope for momentum

Now, South Korea's young women are expected to lead the broad political backlash against Yoon's conservative People Power Party and its candidate Kim Moon Soo. 

Overall, more than half of South Korea's male voters back right-wing parties while almost half the women want the left-wing Democratic Party candidate to win, according to an analysis by Reuters news agency. 

The divergence shrinks for older age groups. 

South Korean voters are choosing a successor to former President Yoon Suk Yeol. 

Yoon was impeached and removed from office over his bid to impose martial law in December. 

After winning the 2022 presidential election, Yoon was supposed to serve a five-year term.

But on December 3, 2024, he declared martial law, something that hadn't happened since South Korea became a democracy in 1987.

The National Assembly, which is controlled by the opposition, voted to impeach Yoon that same month, suspending him from duty. 

That decision was upheld by South Korea's Constitutional Court in April, formally removing Yoon from office. 

The court's decision meant the country had to hold elections within 60 days to vote for a new leader.

The two front runners are Lee Jae-myung from the opposition left-leaning Democratic Party and the conservative People Power Party's Kim Moon Soo.

Frontrunner Lee Jae-myung

But Lee Jae-myung, 60, has emerged as the clear leader in opinion surveys released in recent weeks.

Lee, a former mayor and governor, most recently served as a lawmaker after narrowly losing to impeached former President Yoon Suk Yeol in the 2022 election.

But Lee faces ongoing legal cases and investigations for corruption. Before the election, the Seoul High Court postponed a retrial against him on election law charges until after the June 3 vote.

In his final campaign speeches on Monday, Lee promised to revitalize the economy, reduce inequality and ease national divisions hardened by Yoon's impeachment.

He argued that a win by Kim would allow Yoon's "rebellion forces" to return.

That would mean "the destruction of democracy, the deprival of people's human rights, the normalization of martial law and our country's downfall into a backward, third-world nation," Lee said.

Conservative candidate Kim Moon Soo

Lee's main opponent is Kim Moon Soo, from the conservative People Power Party (PPP) of impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol.

He has previously served as a governor of South Korea's Gyeonggi province and was a member of the National Assembly for three terms. 

On the campaign trail, Kim, 73, has sought to distance himself from ousted president Yoon. 

But Kim was appointed labor minister by Yoon in 2024 and was widely seen as part of the disgraced leader's inner circle.

On the campaign trail on Monday, Kim 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.

Lee's Democratic Party already holds a parliamentary majority.

Lee "is now trying to seize all power in South Korea and establish a Hitler-like dictatorship," Kim told a rally.

Kim is trailing in polls by some 10 percentage points behind Lee. He was unable to convince the third-place candidate to merge forces and make the election competitive.

South Koreans are set to elect a new president in snap elections on Tuesday.

Polls opened at 6 a.m. local time (10 p.m. Monday, UTC) and will close at around 8 p.m. (11 a.m. UTC).

The leader of the opposition left-leaning Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, is seen as the front-runner, while Kim Moon Soo of the conservative People Power Party is polling in second place.

South Korea has seen six months of political chaos after former conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in December. Yoon was later impeached and removed, paving the way for new elections.