Tuesday’s vote was largely seen as a verdict on his ousted predecessor’s botched attempt to impose martial law in the longstanding US ally. Lee won the race with 49.4% of the vote, a comfortable victory over the conservative People Power Party’s Kim Moon-soo, though not the landslide that looked possible earlier in the year.
South Korea’s newly elected President Lee Jae-myung took office with a pledge to revive the nation’s tariff-hit economy and seek dialogue with North Korea to diffuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
“We will start by restoring people’s livelihoods and reviving the economy,” he said at an inauguration ceremony at the National Assembly in Seoul on Wednesday, hours after he won the country’s presidential election. “We will revive the virtuous cycle of the economy by using the national budget as a catalyst.”
