Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/821961
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 10 MAY 2017 A left-leaning liberal who fa- vours engagement with North Korea, has won South Korea's presidential election, raising hopes of a potential rapproche- ment with Pyongyang. Moon Jae-in, avours greater dialogue with North Korea, in a change to current South Korean policy. "I will be president for all South Koreans," he told cheering supporters in Gwanghwamun Square in the capital Seoul. The early election was called after a corruption scandal led to the impeachment of the former president. The former human rights law- yer won 41.4% of the vote, ac- cording to an exit poll cited by the Yonhap news agency, placing him comfortably ahead of his nearest rivals, the centrist soft- ware entrepreneur Ahn Cheol- soo and the conservative hard- liner Hong Joon-pyo, both of whom have conceded defeat. South Koreans who backed Moon, 64, will be hoping the election result will mark a clean break from the corruption scan- dal surrounding his disgraced predecessor Park Geun-hye. Park, who narrowly beat Moon in 2012 to become South Korea's first female president, was im- peached last December and faces possible life imprisonment for al- leged bribery, extortion and oth- er charges involving her secret confidante, Choi Soon-sil. Hours before he won the presi- dency, Moon said: "I gave all my body and soul to the very end. My party and I invested all our ef- forts with a sense of desperation, but we also felt a great desire by the people to build a country we can be proud of again." Moon has called for a more conciliatory approach to North Korea, after weeks of tensions over the regime's ballistic mis- sile and nuclear weapons pro- grammes. Moon, a former student activist who was imprisoned in the 1970s for protesting against Park's fa- ther, the former dictator Park Chung-hee, declared a decade of hardline policy towards Pyong- yang a failure. His calm demeanour and mod- erate rhetoric on the issue stands in sharp contrast to Donald Trump's pugnacity. But Moon has also made it clear he will not tolerate advances in Pyongyang's nuclear programme, warning that any attack on South Korean soil would invite a devastating military response. Conservative critics have said Pyongyang could attempt to ex- ploit Moon's moderation and that attempts at rapprochement could drive a wedge between Seoul and its allies in Washing- ton. But recent comments by Moon and Trump indicate that they may not be as far apart on North Korea as some have suggested. Trump recently described Kim Jong-un as a "smart cookie" and said he would be "honoured" to meet the North Korean leader under the right circumstances. News Liberal wins South Korea presidential election Moon Jae-in has called for a more conciliatory approach to North Korea