SEOUL: South Korea's opposition bloc, including the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), was expected to sweep as many as more than 200 seats in Wednesday's parliamentary elections in what would be a crushing defeat for the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The results, if materialised, would give the opposition bloc more than a two-thirds majority in the 300-member National Assembly that is powerful enough to override presidential vetoes, revise the Constitution and impeach the president, according to Yonhap news agency.
TV exit polls showed that the DP and its sister Democratic United Party that only targets proportional representation seats would win 168 to197 seats, while the PPP and its sister People Future Party were expected to win 85 to111 seats.
The new Rebuilding Korea Party, led by the scandal-tainted former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, was projected to win as many as 15 proportional seats, after campaigning with calls for bringing an early end to the Yoon government, it reported.
If confirmed, the predictions would deal a severe blow to Yoon, whose administration has struggled with challenges due to low approval ratings and the opposition-controlled National Assembly over the past two years.
This year's vote carried extra weight for the PPP as a failure to regain a majority could potentially render the Yoon administration a lame duck for the remaining three years of his single five-year term, ending in 2027.
Following the release of exit poll results, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon expressed disappointment, saying that the PPP did its best to do politics that uphold the will of the people, while DP celebrated the exit poll outcomes, with leader Lee Jae-myung applauding alongside party members at the National Assembly.
Final results are expected early Thursday.
Voter turnout recorded the highest in 32 years.
A total of 14,259 polling stations across the nation closed at 6 p.m., after some 29.66 million, or 67 percent, of the total 44.28 million eligible voters had cast their ballots for 12 hours, according to the National Election Commission. The results were tentative.
The turnout was 0.8 percentage point higher than the 2020 tally of 66.2 percent, marking the highest turnout for general elections since 1992, when the turnout came in at 71.9 percent.
