South Korea presidential election close after early results

A woman casts her vote for presidential election at a local polling station in Busan, South Korea, on Wednesday March 9 2022 (Park Sung-jae/Yonhap/AP)

Voting in South Korea’s presidential election appeared too close to call on Wednesday, according to early results and exit polls, after a hard-fought campaign that pitted an outspoken liberal ex-governor against a conservative former top prosecutor.

The election boiled down to a two-way showdown between Lee Jae-myung, the former governor of South Korea’s most populous Gyeonggi province, and his main conservative challenger, Yoon Suk Yeol. The two spent months slamming, mocking and demonising each other in one of the most bitter political campaigns in recent memory, aggravating the country’s already severe domestic divisions.