SOUTH KOREA: South Korea's ruling party candidate, Mr Roh Moo-hyun, won the country's presidential election yesterday, a result that could complicate ties with the US as the allies grapple with North Korea's nuclear programme.
The unofficial count of 95 per cent of ballots showed that Mr Roh beat conservative opposition candidate Mr Lee Hoi-chang by 2.5 percentage points. It was a closely fought election that had become a referendum on how to handle South Korea's unpredictable communist neighbour.
"I have failed again in my bid for the presidency," said Mr Lee, who lost the 1997 election to incumbent President Kim Dae-jung. Mr Roh thanked his supporters and vowed to work for every South Korean "not just those of you who backed me".
Mr Roh will have little time to savour his victory, facing a hostile parliament controlled by Mr Lee's party, a slowing economy and the Bush administration in Washington with a starkly different approach to North Korea - branded part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran - and its nuclear arms.
The National Election Commission was expected to formally confirm Mr Roh as the winner early today. The voter turnout at 70.2 per cent was the lowest in South Korean history.
The triumph of Mr Roh (56), a populist human rights and labour lawyer, marks a stunning turnaround after the 11th-hour desertion of his election alliance partner, Mr Chung Mong-joon.
Mr Roh has vowed to be tough on family-run conglomerates which dominate Asia's fourth-largest economy, but continue President Kim's "sunshine policy" of reconciliation with North Korea despite Pyongyang's nuclear brinkmanship.
Mr Prakash Sakpal, an economist with ING Barings in Hong Kong, said the projected ruling party win was "good news because Roh will continue the current government's economic reform.
"The markets are likely to react positively." But the Bush administration might be less enthused given Mr Roh's ambivalent statements in the past about the US military presence.
The US has 37,000 troops helping to protect the South from its reclusive neighbour. North and South Korea are technically still at war as the 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
But Mr Roh's campaign rode a tide of unprecedented anti-American sentiment which brought tens of thousands on to the streets in anger after a US court martial acquitted two US soldiers whose armoured vehicle crushed to death two teenage girls during military exercises in June.
Mr Robert Fouser, a Korea expert at Kyoto University in Japan, predicted a "German-style attempt to patch it up with the United States", similar to moves by German Chancellor Mr Gerhard Schröder, who was re-elected this year on an anti-US platform.
"Roh will need to reach out to the centre, so there will be a spin drive [on his stance towards the United States\]," he said.
Korea University politics professor Mr Lee Nae-young said anti-American sentiment contributed to Mr Roh's win but the deciding factor was desire for change. "Roh symbolises that as a politician from outside the mainstream."
The White House said it looked forward to continuing a strong relationship with South Korea. White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer said he would have a more complete statement later. "The United States enjoys a very strong relationship with the government and the people of South Korea. It's an important relationship and it's a relationship we look forward to continuing very productively," he said.