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

Yoon clinched the race early on Thursday after securing 48-point-six percent of the vote or 16-point-39 million votes.

The former prosecutor general defeated the ruling Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung by just point-eight percentage points or some 240-thousand votes.

It is the smallest margin of victory since 1987 when the nation introduced a direct presidential election system.

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

It is also the first time since 1987 that the conservative and liberal bloc changed hands after a single five-year term instead of ten years.

Yoon will become the first South Korean president without any legislative experience.