Lee Jae-myung of South Korea's majority liberal Democratic Party took a big lead in exit polls of the snap presidential election on Tuesday.

Lee won 51.7 percent of the vote in an exit poll, jointly conducted by three terrestrial broadcasters, surpassing Kim Moon-soo of the conservative People Power Party with 39.3 percent.

Lee Jun-seok of the minor conservative New Reform Party took 7.7 percent of support.

Separate estimates by local broadcasters JTBC, Channel A and MBN showed Lee holding a lead over Kim by about 10 percentage points.