ON SOUTH KOREAN television screens on election night, news channels kept viewers entertained with zany coverage. Instead of clean-cut talking heads, one broadcaster’s vote count was accompanied by computer-generated avatars of the two main presidential candidates in stained T-shirts, dirt-splattered leather jackets and weather-beaten motorcycle boots. As the numbers slowly ticked up, they danced to K-pop, rode locomotives and raced cars and motorbikes through a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape. The dystopian setting and animated mudslinging summed up an election that had been defined less by sober debates about policy than by name-calling and political stunts.
It was close until the very last moment. Exit polls on the evening of March 9th showed the two main candidates—Yoon Suk-yeol of the conservative People Power Party and Lee Jae-myung of the governing left-of-centre Minjoo Party—in a dead heat. Mr Yoon carried the day by the smallest margin in South Korea’s democratic history, winning 48.56% of the vote to Mr Lee’s 47.83%, with a turnout of 77.1%. He will take…
