SEOUL, March 9, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - South Koreans are voting Wednesday in a
tightly fought presidential election with the deciding votes set to be cast
by young people, whose top concerns are economic inequality and unemployment
-- not recent sabre-rattling from the nuclear-armed North.

  Official figures showed high turnout of about 65 percent by 2 pm (0500
GMT), after record early voting, following a campaign dominated by mud-
slinging between the two front runners, the incumbent Democratic Party's Lee
Jae-myung and the opposition conservative People Power Party's Yoon Suk-yeol.

  The pair, both so unpopular local media have branded it the "election of
the unfavourables", have been neck and neck in the polls for months. Some 90
percent of the electorate supports one or the other.

  The choices of young swing voters will probably prove decisive, analysts
said, adding the demographic's top concerns were skyrocketing house prices in
the capital Seoul, social inequality and stubborn youth unemployment.

  "I'm really worried about housing prices in Seoul and I hope the new
president will focus on making people's lives easier and better," Park Ki-
tae, 38, told AFP after casting his ballot.

  Both leading candidates have promised to build millions of new homes,
although the left-leaning Lee relies more on public housing and the
conservative Yoon on market-led solutions to the crisis.

  South Korean politics is famously adversarial. Presidents serve a single
term of five years and every living former leader has been jailed for
corruption after leaving office.

  The two parties are ideologically poles apart, and observers say the key
question is whether voters will kick out incumbent Moon Jae-in's dovish
liberals and usher in a new hawkish, fiscally conservative regime under Yoon.

  "Young voters are not loyal to any particular political party and thus
can't be defined by liberal-conservative ideology," said Shin Yul, political
science professor at Myongji University.

  "Turnouts and choices by those in their 20s will have a significant bearing
on the outcome."

  Voters, wearing masks and using hand sanitiser after the country recorded a
record 342,446 new Covid-19 cases Wednesday amid an Omicron spike, lined up
to cast their ballots at polling stations.

  "What the country needs right now is change," 71-year-old Hong Sung-cheon
told AFP at a polling station in southern Seoul.

  Polling booths opened at 6 am will shut at 6 pm. For 90 minutes after
closing, Covid-positive voters will be allowed to cast their ballots.

  More than a million people were isolating at home after testing positive,
health authorities said. The country amended its electoral laws last month to
ensure they would be able to vote.

  In a two-day early voting exercise last week, a record-breaking 37 percent
of the 44 million people eligible cast their ballots -- the highest number
since the system was introduced in 2013.

  - North Korea -

  The new president will also have to confront an increasingly assertive
North Korea, which has embarked on a record-breaking blitz of weapons tests
this year including a launch just days before the election.

  On Tuesday, a North Korean patrol boat briefly crossed the de facto
maritime border, prompting the South Korean Navy to fire warning shots.
Pyongyang also tested what Seoul called a ballistic missile Saturday.

  The gaffe-prone opposition candidate Yoon is more hawkish on North Korea,
and has threatened a pre-emptive strike if necessary.

  The former top prosecutor has also promised to abolish the gender equality
ministry, saying South Korean women do not suffer from "systemic gender
discrimination", despite evidence to the contrary.

  "The widespread support Yoon enjoys from young men is frankly absolutely
terrifying from a woman's point of view," academic and female voter Keung
Yoon Bae told AFP.

  Yoon's rival Lee, a former child factory worker turned politician, has
offered a slew of fresh policies from a universal basic income to free school
uniforms -- but his campaign has been marred by scandal.

  The 57-year-old is under pressure over a controversial land development
deal in which private investors profited from a state-funded project on Lee's
watch as mayor of the city of Seongnam.

  He was also forced to start his campaign by apologising for a profanity-
laden phone call with his family involving disputes with his late brother and
mother.

  The winner of the election will formally succeed Moon in May. The incumbent
remains popular, despite not achieving a promised peace deal with North
Korea.