(Adnkronos) – South Korea votes to elect the new president after six months of political crisis triggered by the decision of Yoon Suk-yeol, now dismissed head of state, to impose martial law, which was soon revoked. In a divided country, pre-vote polls favored Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party candidate who lost the 2022 presidential challenge to Yoon by a handful of votes. Behind him, Kim Moon-soo of the ruling People Power Party (PPP).
At 1 p.m. local time, according to the electoral commission and reported by the South Korean agency Yonhap, more than 27.5 million voters out of a total of over 44 million have voted. The figure includes early voting and voting abroad.
Yoon voted in Seoul. The polls will close at 8 p.m., 1 p.m. in Italy. In addition to Lee and Kim, Lee Jun-seok of the Reform Party, Kwon Young-guk of the Democratic Labor Party and Song Jin-ho, who is running as an independent, are running for president.
