Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative former top prosecutor, was declared winner in South Korea’s presidential polls on March 10, defeating a liberal rival in one of the most closely fought polls in the country’s history.
With more than 98 percent of the ballots counted, Yoon managed to secure 48.6% of votes against his rival Lee Jae-myung’s 47.8%. Both candidates spent months mocking and demonizing each other in a bitter political campaign.
Yoon will take office in May as leader of the world’s 10th-largest economy to serve a single five-year term.
In his first public action, after he became the presidential candidate for the People Power Party last October, he visited Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul on a Sunday, sang hymns and prayed with the congregation. Media reports said the move was to attract Christian votes and silence critics who said he followed shamanism.
He was baptized with the name Ambroise in the Catholic Church but he does not practice his faith life in any parish community, according to Church sources.
Christianity has emerged as the largest religion in South Korea and is followed by some 28% of its 51 million people, according to the 2015 national census. A larger group, some 56%, follows no religion at all. Some 15% follow Buddhism, making it the second-largest religion in the country.
In the run-up to the election, Yoon promised to deal sternly with provocations by North Korea and to boost trilateral security ties with Washington and Tokyo.