The president of South Korea votes in the early election

SEOUL: As early voting began on Friday in anticipation of next week’s general election, in which his party hopes to regain its legislative majority, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol cast his vote.
Some pollsters claim that the South Korean leader’s popularity rating has dropped below 40% in recent weeks due to a long list of scandals and voters’ discontent with growing inflation.

However, analysts believe the poll is critical for Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) since a supermajority for the opposition may severely undermine Yoon’s influence in the last three years of his tenure.
Yoon voted on Friday in the southern port city of Busan, South Korea, and congratulated the poll workers there, according to his office.
At 3 pm (0600 GMT) on Friday, the country’s election commission said that 11.1 percent of eligible voters, including the president, had cast their votes at more than 3,500 polling places around the nation.
According to officials, this is the largest participation for a general election held within the designated time period since early voting was instituted in 2013.
Yoon had called for the voting of all eligible voters on Thursday, describing it as an “exercise of right and responsibility.”
The constitution only permits him one five-year term, and his party is keen to take over the legislature in order to further his socially conservative policies and tough stance towards Pyongyang.
While his party has been embroiled in scandals—such as the allegation that Yoon’s former defence minister obstructed an inquiry into the death of a young marine—the head of the major opposition Democratic Party (DP), Lee Jae-myung, has been embroiled in criminal proceedings.
According to a joint poll conducted by four reputable polling organisations and released on Thursday, 39% of respondents stated they would vote for the PPP and 37% for the DP.
Yoon defeated Lee by a mere 0.73 percent in the 2022 presidential election, although the DP still has the legislative majority.
Political scientist Linda Hasunuma of Temple University told AFP that “if Yoon’s party does well, it will give him more leverage; if his party does poorly, it could effectively keep Yoon from leading.”
On Saturday, the early voting session closes.