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I don't like the new South Korean president.

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The election is over.

Roh wins South Korea vote

Staff and wires

SEOUL, South Korea --Ruling party candidate Roh Moo-hyun has won South Korea's presidential election, following a tightly-fought contest that focused heavily on foreign policy issues.

With about 99.9 percent of the votes counted, Roh had 48.9 percent and Lee 46.6 percent.

Roh, 56, thanked his supporters and vowed to work for every South Korean.

"I will try to become a president, not just for the people who supported me, but also for the people who opposed me in the election," Roh said at his party headquarters. Supporters clapped, danced and waved balloons.

"I have failed again in my bid for the presidency," said Lee, 67, who lost the 1997 election to incumbent President Kim Dae-jung.

The hotly contested race between Roh and Lee -- the two front runners in a six horse race -- was dominated by concerns over North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the status of 37,000 U.S. forces in the South.

The winner will lead South Korea into the next era of relations with North Korea and the United States. North Korea was branded part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran by the U.S.

The vote took place amid a surge of anti-Americanism fueled by the acquittals of U.S. soldiers who blamed for the deaths of two Korean teenage girls in a road accident.

However, despite such burning issues, turnout among the nation's 35 million eligible voters was the lowest in South Korean history.

At 70.2 percent, it was almost 11 percent lower than in the 1997 presidential election -- which was itself a record low.

Far apart

In the early days of the campaign Roh had edged ahead of Lee in opinion polls, but he suffered a setback when his coalition partner withdrew his support over what he called overly "anti-American" comments relating to North Korea. (Roh profile)

While both candidates wanted their northern neighbor to give up its nuclear ambitions, during campaigning they were far apart on how to deal with the communist state.

Roh wanted to curb Pyongyang's nuclear plans through dialogue but Lee was an outspoken critic of Seoul's so-called "Sunshine policy" of engagement with the North, and was keen to stand up to Pyongyang and cut aid as a way of forcing the North's hand.

Both contenders also held different views on how to preserve Seoul's alliance with Washington.

Roh argued the five-decade-old alliance with America is unequal and must be revised. Lee however said he wanted to preserve Seoul's ties with Washington. (Lee profile)

The presence of 37,000 U.S. troops on the peninsula as a buffer against Seoul's reclusive and unpredictable northern neighbor, is also a sore point for Koreans.

Surveys showed the election split South Korea with younger voters keen on the more liberal Roh, and older ones backing conservative Lee.

Roh will replace Kim Dae-Jung, who has served as the country's president since 1997 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his efforts to improve ties with North Korea.

President Kim's five-year term ends in February. Under South Korean law, he was barred from seeking re-election.

The National Election Commission is expected to formally confirm Roh as the winner early Friday.

-- CNN's Sohn Jie-ae, The Associated Press and Reuters news agency contributed to this report.

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So, if I' ve understand well the new president is a little against USA and wants more dialogue with North Korea. I think he is wrong, too.

First of all, dialogue doesn't help when dealing with dictatorial rulers.

Second, USA in South Korea is the counterweight of China influence in North Korea.

I also don't like our president (is a socialist) nor the US president, but nobody asked my opinion and I think that nobody is interested about this fact :)

Be happy that after all you live in a country in which there are real free elections.

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A different view of the election. Looks like the younger voters went for the man who won, whilst the older generation backed the other guy.

It is true that most of the younger generations support Roh and most of the older generations support Lee. However, the results would have been different without the fanatic anti-American and pro-North Korean political activist groups that are highly motivated and well organized brainwashing the people that the US soldiers in South Korea are all criminals or nearly so that rape and kill South Koreans and that the two girls were murdered by two cold-blooded US Army soldiers who like to make fun of South Korean student girls. Death to Americans were very common in millions of South Korean forum boards and practically ALL South Korean young people read them. What will they feel? Koreans are really the most nationalistic and xenophobic people in the world. North Korea is popular among some millions of South Korea because NK stood up against the United States in trying to develop nuclear bombs even at the risk of economic and political isolation. They are happy for it because they think the South Korean government has recently been too obidient to the US government. What those fanatics wanted was nothing less than death penalty for the two US soldiers and they would never have stopped violent organized protests all over the country even then.

The truth is that Roh used those Marx-Leninst pro-North Korean communist groups to do the dirty things for him to get elected. Lee has relatives who are US citizens and that alone was enough for at least the millions of voters to go to the voting places just to make sure Lee would never become president.

Keep in mind that even the most pro-American politicians in South Korea are extremely nationalistic and it's just the same with Lee, Jung (the third important runner in this election), and Kim Jong-Pil (the first Korean CIA director and the main leader for a few millions in central South Korean provinces.)

I hate Lee and wanted him also to be killed on TV for all the world to watch because they are all responsible for the 1980 massacre in Kwangju and they became even more powerful and richer because of the former dictator general presidents. But Roh is even worse than him. At least, Lee is reasonable in international and industrial policies.

Also, don't forget that North Korea exists and survives only because of anti-Americanism. Anything against a foreign influence is right in South Korea whether it's violence on mass scale or boycott against fastfood chains like Walmart, Microsoft, BurgerKing, and Pizza Hut.

That's why I wanted US people to shut up in and about South Korea. But then hardly any US soldiers learned enough to adapt to the South Korean situation and they were too free.

I would have liked to do anything to destroy those fanatic groups (I were inside many of them either to persuade or to destroy) but the Net is too democratic and flamable for anyone and any political organization however rich and sophisticated to counter-attack them and they used the most efficient methods to make good use of the new technology unlike their enemies. It's like there are two countries inside South Korea: North Korea in South Korea and the rest.

You can read some history and learn what the Koreans were doing while the Japanese people were going through a revolution to open and modernize their country to catch up with the West and conquer Asia-Pacific. The revolutionaries who wanted to open the country and send thousands of people overseas to learn everything around the world won in Japan and lost in Korea. Things in China were a bit more complicated.

So this makes the remote possibility of East Asian integration and cooperation even more difficult. During the 1980s, I realized South Korea was the most closed and nationalistic member among the capitalist pro-US group and North Korea was the most closed and nationalistic member among the communist pro-USSR group. They were also the poorest and both systems were dictatorial and totalitarian.


I think many people are interested like myself but I know too little about Romania and eastern Europe in general. It is true that South Korea has "free" elections but it's still a system that are largely monopolized and run by those seeking contacts with the dictators who are still alive rich and powerful. It has been the norm the close relatives of each president can all have 100,000,000 USD. Corruption of course but who really cares? People like Roh and the current president Kim DaeJung are cleaner (poorer I mean) in that matter but they are not the ones that control the system and they are just smaller and lesser ones.

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Lee is Yi Hoe-chang in this CIA factbook.

election results: KIM Dae-jung elected president; percent of vote - KIM Dae-jung (MDP) 40.3% (with ULD partnership), YI Hoe-chang (GNP) 38.7%, YI In-che (NPP) 19.2%


Roh is the successor of DJ. The DJ party is mainly based on the southwestern region of South Korea, the Cholla province where Kwangju is the largest and most important city. Bakje kingdom was here.

Yi is the successor of YS (1992-1997 president), Roh Taewoo (1987-1992 president), Chon Duhwan (1980 - 1987 president), and Park Junghee (1962-1979, assassinated by the Korean CIA director, Kim Jaekyoo). All of these were based in the eastwestern region of South Korea, the Kyungsang province where Pusan and Taegu are the largest and most important cities. Shilla kinghom was here and Shilla conquered Bakje and Kokuryo that was based in Manchu and northern part of the Korean peninsula and lasted till the 10th century.

Nearly 100% of Kwangju and 85-95% of Cholla voters gave votes to DJ and Roh Muhyeon. Nearly 80-90% of original Taegu and Kyungsang voters gave votes to Roh Taewoo, YS, and Yi. Southeastern provinces have 50-80% higher income per capita and more than two times as many people as Cholla provinces that include many of the Cholla immigrants who moved because the regimes traditionally excluded Cholla region in most national development plans (jobs, schools, roads, railways, etc.)

The latest edition of Encyclopedia Britannia says there were a little over 200 people killed in Kwangju in May 1980. It was basically a protest against Chon Duhwan but it was also closely related to the US forces in South Korea, the regional discrimination by the military leaders of Kyungsang provinces, and communist uprisings. Thousands including babies, middle school students, 80+ year old people were killed while the Chollanam-Do (the southernmost province of Cholla region) was completely isolated from other regions.

Important and rich South Korean-style conglomerates called Jaebol like Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Daewoo, SK, Hanjin, and many other national and non-national business bodies are all also based in the Kyungsang provinces. You can see the city named Mokpo in the map and that is Dj's hometown and close to where he was born. So even though Roh Muhyeon has become the next president, there will be not be much change domestically. Samsung and LG together will have earned 20 billion profits this year. The entire South Korean GNP is about 400 billion. The dictators helped them to monopolize everything and the Jaebol companies gave the dictators money large enough to bribe every voter in the country which they did.

It is quite like the situations with the corrupt capitalist and pro-US regimes in many Latin countries, Taiwan (formerly mainland China), Iran before 1979, and some others. Most of the South Korean people will continue to pretend as if the economic "miracle" they have achieved were the fruitful results of their own efforts and national "superiority" and they will not let anyone who thinks otherwise speak different opinions. So shut up. They don't want to hear that it is natural that most of the world call the sea body between Russia, Japan, and Korea Sea of Japan and will repeat that it is Donghae (east sea) and they will attack anything that says otherwise in the map or any other thing (which was the biggest reason why Microsoft became the most hated company in South Korea by letting the South Koreans see Encarta.)

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Lee anounced in the morning that he would retire. His political period is over.

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The U.S. should pull out of South Urea whether the Ureans want them to or not. They're an ungrateful lot who are undeserving of the prosperity and freedom they now enjoy. Let them re-unify with the north, who cares. In fact let China dominate the whole lot. China deserves such ingrates, being one herself.

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That is why I said shut up. I don't see people like you are any better than those fanatical South Koreans except that you are behind the most powerful armed forces in the world history.

And more than the whole number of US population DO CARE.

Whenever I write something like this in order to provide a more honest explanation, your sort of people just try to bash and discriminate other peoples and races about whom you hardly know and would never try to understand except that some of them do not like some of you.

I criticized nationalism, NOT South Koreans and China.

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Hey you shut up kid! No tell me shut up. No. You da one must shut up kid! Ok? Snake pipe salesman!

Funny guy who has posts only in this board. :D

Anyway, CNN, NYT, and WP are suddenly very interested in this.


The demarcation line between North and South Korea is known as the 38th parallel.

The line is 2.5 miles wide and 151 miles long.

Nearly 2 million troops guard the line on both sides.

The zone was agreed to in an armistice to the Korean War signed July 27, 1953.

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Opposite to Roh Mu-Hyun, Lee MB is pro-American. One of the first things he did right after he became president was to reopen...

South Korea banned imports of U.S. beef in 2003 amid concerns over a case of mad cow disease in the United States. The ban closed what was then the third-largest market for U.S. beef exporters.

It resumed limited imports last year -- allowing boneless beef from cattle under 30 months of age -- but that re-opening was subject to interruptions and closed altogether in October 2007.

A deal that South Korea and the United States struck last month bans the import of high-risk materials, like tonsils, brains, spinal cord marrow and a section of the small intestine, Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun said Thursday, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. These parts pose the greatest risk of transmitting mad cow disease to humans.

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Face it, South Korea is just SCREWED right they have no good short-term strategy that satisfies everyone.

Historically, North and South Korea should be united - they were one nation once.

Politically, the North hews to a discredited and obsolete political dictatorship that worships a communist "god". Not that they want to en masse, but they do as a result of government controls on their media and education.

In the medium to long term, this is not a problem..."gods" die. And historically the South is the much more mature and economically sound partner, just like West and East Germany.

Everything else in the meantime is just political theatre...

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