Lee Jae-myung takes office on the back of the highest voting turnout in recent elections, which followed three different interim presidents, protests and legal battles that exposed rifts in one of Asia's most successful democracies.

An election was triggered in April by the removal of then-President Yoon Suk Yeol over his imposition of martial law late last year.

Facing a complex set of thorny challenges at home and abroad, Lee Jae-myung says he will deal with them with “pragmatism.”