SEOUL, March 8 (UPI) -- South Korea will head to the polls on Wednesday to choose its next president in an election that has been dominated by scandals and negative campaigning but comes as the country faces major challenges around the region and at home.
The most recent polls show the two main candidates -- Lee Jae-myung of the incumbent Democratic Party and Yoon Suk-yeol of the opposition People Power Party -- in a virtual dead heat. Gallup Korea's final survey, released last week before a blackout period ahead of the vote, found support for the conservative Yoon at 39% and the liberal Lee at 38%.
The polls, however, did not reflect a late move from minor-party candidate Ahn Cheol-soo to join forces with Yoon, giving the 61-year-old former top prosecutor a presumptive edge.
The winner will succeed President Moon Jae-in and start a single, five-year term on May 10.
Both candidates have been dogged by scandals during their campaigns and neither has connected with a majority of voters in a race that has been widely portrayed as a choice between the lesser of two evils.
The blunt, sometimes brusque 57-year old Lee rose from a childhood of poverty to become governor of Gyeonggi Province, where he championed progressive policies, including an ambitious universal basic income scheme.
Yoon is the country's former top prosecutor and has little political experience. He only joined the People Power Party in July but emerged as a favorite among the conservative opposition during a series of high-profile showdowns with Moon while serving in his administration.
Much of the focus during the campaign has been on name-calling, gaffes and the scandals that have churned around each candidate.
Lee continues to be dogged by allegations that he was connected to a corrupt real-estate development project in Seongnam while he was mayor. Yoon is facing his own corruption probe over abuse of power and election-meddling charges when he was prosecutor-general.
Even the candidates' spouses have been drawn in, with Lee's wife, Kim Hye-kyung, accused of abusing power while her husband was governor and Yoon's wife, Kim Keon-heem, coming under fire for falsifying her resume and allegedly manipulating stock prices.
But once the dust settles on a brawling campaign season, serious challenges will await whoever takes office in May.
On the foreign policy front, the once hopeful period of diplomacy with North Korea during the earlier part of Moon's administration has become a distant memory, as Pyongyang has ramped up its missile tests as of late and appears to be restarting its nuclear weapons program.
Lee has said he will continue to pursue Moon's policies of engagement with North Korea. Yoon will look to strengthen the alliance with the United States and has taken a hard-line stance toward the North, even raising the notion of pre-emptive strikes.
An increasingly assertive China may be the biggest challenge ahead for South Korea, however. Lee has said he will navigate a course between Washington and Beijing, but some analysts believe that as the rivalry continues to grow between the two global superpowers, Seoul may be forced to choose sides.
"Indo-Pacific strategy is going to be the most important task for the next South Korean president on the foreign policy side," Go Myong-hyun, senior research fellow at Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, told UPI. "There's no way to stay on the sidelines anymore, figuring out which way the wind is going to blow."
For most people heading to the polls on Wednesday, domestic issues top the list of concerns. Voters in their 20s and 30s, who are facing soaring real estate prices, high youth unemployment and growing inequality, are seen as the crucial demographic in determining the next president.
Young men have taken a sharply conservative turn in polling and recent local elections, driven in part by a pushback against a rising feminist movement that some claim has marginalized them and diminished their future opportunities.
Yoon has clearly courted this cohort of voters with campaign pledges that include a vow to abolish the country's Ministry of Gender Equality.
Young women tend to be far more liberal on social issues but have not flocked to Lee with equal enthusiasm, as he has also been careful not to alienate younger male voters. Both candidates in the closing days have made a late push to reach out to women, but it is unclear how effective their efforts will be.
At a recent feminist rally in Seoul, protesters were critical of both candidates in what they called a "misogynist presidential election."
"Yoon is against women; Lee Jae-myung is better but he's not doing enough," said Lee Da-gyeong, 21. "The Democratic Party takes women's votes for granted. We need to make our voices heard."
Further complicating matters is the fact that this election is being held in the midst of a soaring COVID-19 outbreak driven by the Omicron variant. Controversy emerged during early voting on Friday and Saturday when ballots cast by COVID-19 patients were collected in unofficial containers by poll workers, sparking concerns about mishandling and accusations of fraud.
The National Election Commission announced that it will allow patients and those in quarantine to directly place their ballots in boxes on election day.
The brawling style of the campaign trail even spilled over into physical violence on Monday, as the head of the Democratic Party was attacked with a hammer by a man in his 70s.
Polls open on Wednesday morning for the roughly 44 million South Koreans eligible to vote out of a population of 52 million. Early voting ended with a record turnout of 37%, leaving election officials expecting heavy overall participation.
