Exit polls in South Korea on Tuesday were forecasting a win by liberal candidate Moon Jae In in an election to succeed ousted President Park Geun-hye.
At the close of polling, an estimated 75% of South Koreans had cast their votes, according to the National Election Commission, though that figure is expected to change.
The winning candidate will be officially sworn in as South Korea's new president after the National Election Commission ends the vote count and confirms the victor on Wednesday.
(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon). South Korean presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party holds flowers in front of supporters during an election campaign in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, May 8, 2017.
The Korean Broadcasters Association said the poll had a margin of error of 0.8 percentage points.
A win by Mr Moon would end a decade of conservative rule in South Korea and could result in sharp departures from recent policy toward nuclear-armed North Korea.
Moon, who lost to Park narrowly in the last presidential election in 2012, has criticized the two former conservative governments for failing to stop North Korea's weapons development. "Those concerns center around both substance and style, with echoes of the Roh Moo-hyun-George W. Bush hard relations very much in people's minds", Alan Romberg, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, told Yonhap News Agency.
The election was closely watched by allies and neighbors at a time of high tension over North Korea's accelerating development of weapons since it conducted its fourth nuclear test in January previous year.
The victor will be sworn in after the National Election Commission confirms the result Wednesday.
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The election had been considered tilted in favour of liberal candidates from the very onset as it followed the removal of the former conservative president over corruption allegations. As chief of staff to President Roh Moo-hyun during Roh's term from 2003 to 2008, Moon was part of an administration that pursued exactly that, increasing political and economic contact with North Korea in an effort to keep the peace.
In an election day editorial, the JoongAng daily said South Korea had been left "adrift" by the "acute division and lack of national leadership" stemming from the corruption scandal and Park's impeachment.
But while North Korea's burgeoning nuclear program grabs headlines overseas, many South Koreans say the election issues most important to them are domestic: sluggish economic growth, soaring youth unemployment, corruption and air pollution.
Hong, an outspoken former provincial governor who pitched himself as a "strongman", described the election as a war between ideologies and questioned Moon's patriotism. Because the vote is a special election, the new president will forgo the usual two-month transition and will serve one full, five-year term rather than only completing Park's original term, which was to end in February 2018.
Park is behind bars and standing trial on 18 charges, including bribery and coercion, after it emerged that her confidante was using their relationship to extract money from South Korean conglomerates, Samsung among them.
The National Election Commission announced that voter turnout of the 42 million Koreans registered to vote was on track to reach over 80 percent, which would be the highest since President Kim Dae-jung was elected in 1997, with 80.7 percent of eligible voters casting ballots. He called for reforms to reduce social inequalities, excessive presidential power and corrupt ties between politicians and business leaders.
More than 139,000 voting stations opened at 6 am local time (2100 GMT) across the country under overcast skies, with turnout expected to hit a record high. Before that, she might watch a scheduled documentary about the USA presidential system or a soap opera.
"Things are not right to resume the so-called Sunshine Policy, as the US and China turned more hostile towards North Korea", said Koh Yu-hwan, Dongguk University professor of North Korean studies, who is serving as a foreign policy adviser to Moon.
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