South Korea Elects Lee President, Capping Six Months of Chaos

Left-leaning challenger Lee Jae-myung won South Korea’s presidential election, ending three years of conservative rule in a race that was largely a verdict on his ousted predecessor’s botched attempt to revive martial law in the longstanding US ally.

Lee, a former labor activist, won Tuesday’s election with 49.4% of the vote, a comfortable win over Kim Moon-soo of the incumbent People Power Party, according to the final count released by the National Election Commission. The agency, which said voter turnout reached a 28-year high of 79.4%, officially declared Lee as the nation’s 21st president at 6:21 a.m. local time on Wednesday. He will take the presidential oath in parliament at 11 a.m., Yonhap News reported.