South Koreans vote as President Yoon faces a major test in a crucial parliamentary election

South Koreans vote in parliamentary election seen as referendum on President Yoon Suk Yeol's policies and future.

South Koreans are voting Wednesday in a hotly contested parliamentary election that's largely seen as a referendum on conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol and a possible sign of a deepening domestic divide.

Regardless of the results, Mr. Yoon will stay in power and his major foreign policy agenda will likely continue. But a failure by his governing People Power Party to restore a parliamentary majority could make him a lame duck for the remaining three years of his single five-year term, experts say.

Since taking office in 2022, Mr. Yoon, a former top prosecutor, has been grappling with low approval ratings and a liberal opposition-controlled parliament that has limited his major policy platforms.

Pre-election surveys indicate that the liberal opposition parties will likely maintain a dominant position in the single-chamber, 300-member National Assembly. But many observers say it's still too early to determine who will win the election because many electorates are being closely fought and many moderate voters will make last-minute choices.

"What would matter to the People Power Party is whether it can become the biggest party or the second biggest party,” said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership. “If his party loses the elections, Mr. Yoon will find it difficult to move forward even a single step on state affairs.”

Of the 300 seats, 254 are to be elected through direct votes in local districts and the other 46 allotted by the proportion of the votes cast for the parties. Election observers say candidates in about 50 to 55 local districts are in neck-and-neck races.

Polling stations opened at 6 a.m. and will close at 6 p.m. South Korea has 44 million eligible voters, and about 31% of them, or nearly 14 million people, have already cast ballots during two-day early voting last week. It was the highest turnout of its kind in the history of South Korean parliamentary elections, according to the National Election Commission.