Yoon Suk Yeol of the main opposition People Power Party(PPP) has been elected new president of South Korea after a tight race in the 20th presidential election.

As of 4:38 a.m. on Thursday, with 99-point-two percent of votes counted by the National Election Commission, Yoon had 48-point-six percent of the vote or 16-point-28 million votes. 

The former prosecutor general defeated the ruling Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung by less than one percentage point.

Yoon will be the first South Korean president without any legislative experience since a direct presidential election system went into effect in 1987.

Yoon also won the presidential race by the smallest margin.
 
The closest presidential election before Wednesday's race was in 1997 when Kim Dae-jung won with just a one-point-53 percentage point gap against his opponent Lee Hoe-chang.