South Korea will hold a snap presidential election June 3 to choose Yoon Suk Yeol's successor after the conservative was ousted over his imposition of martial law late last year.
The announcement from acting President Han Duck-soo came four days after the Constitutional Court unanimously removed Yoon from office, which by law, must be followed by an election within 60 days. The next president will serve a full 5-year term.
Deep political polarization will likely shape the election into a two-way showdown between Yoon’s People Power Party and its chief liberal rival, the Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the National Assembly.
It will be an uphill battle for the People Power Party as it struggles to restore public confidence and heal severe internal divisions left by Yoon’s brief enactment of martial law.
The focus of attention is on whether conservatives can regroup and field a strong candidate to compete against likely Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung, who observers say is the clear front-runner.
Potential candidates South Korea's political parties are expected to launch primaries to select their presidential candidates in the coming weeks.
The Democratic Party candidate is expected to be Lee, a powerful party leader who faces no major challengers inside the party. Lee, who narrowly lost the 2022 election to Yoon, led the party through a crisis during which many of its members faced off against troops sent by Yoon to encircle the National Assembly building, voted down martial law and later impeached Yoon.
About 10 politicians from the People Power Party are expected to seek the nomination.
Yoon’s baffling decision to enact martial law, which brought armed troops into Seoul’s streets and evoked the country’s traumatic memories of past military rule, was a blow to his party’s reputation even though the party wasn’t directly involved.
Some reformist party members openly criticized Yoon’s actions and cast ballots to impeach him, triggering a feud with the party’s old guard who supported the president.
Yoon has diehard supporters who regularly staged massive rallies. Many share an unfounded perception that Yoon is a victim of a leftist, North Korea-sympathizing opposition that has rigged elections to gain a legislative majority and plotted to remove a patriotic leader.
“South Korea’s conservative party faces significant disadvantages heading into the upcoming election. Two months is a short time to unify the base, moderates and a conspiracy-driven fringe around a single candidate,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
The party’s current leadership is filled with Yoon loyalists, and that will likely let the internal divide continue and undermine its electoral prospects, said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership.
Among the leading People Power Party presidential hopefuls, Labor Minister Kim Moon Soo is considered to be the most pro-Yoon. He and Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo opposed impeaching Yoon, while former party leader Han Dong-hoon and senior party lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo supported removing him from office. The last major candidate is Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who has maintained an ambiguous position.
Choi said Yoon will likely exert his influence to boost pro-Yoon figures who are seeking the nomination and party leadership posts so they can defend him as he faces a criminal trial. Yoon was charged with rebellion in January, and he could face other charges like abuse of power now that he has lost presidential immunity, which protected him from most criminal prosecutions.
The People Power Party “will need to nominate someone who can win over the public, particularly the moderates, rather than someone who can win the party’s primaries,” said Duyeon Kim, a senior analyst at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. “Korean moderates and the young generation in their 20s and 30s will likely be the swing voters.”
Opposition leader Lee, who has served as a provincial governor and a city mayor, is considered by his supporters as a populist reformer. But critics regard him as a demagogue who relies on stoking divisions and demonizing his rivals.
Lee faces five ongoing trials for corruption and other criminal charges. If he becomes president, those trials will likely stop thanks to presidential immunity.
Yoon has repeatedly accused Lee’s Democratic Party of abusing its parliamentary majority status to obstruct his agenda, impeach senior officials and slash the government’s budget bill. Yoon said his martial law declaration was a desperate attempt to draw public support of his fight against “wickedness” of Lee’s party.
“Lee Jae-myung has many detractors among the South Korean public who believe he nearly broke the government for his own benefit, weaponizing the legislature to push Yoon over the edge and cast his own legal cases as political persecution,” Easley said.
“Lee’s successful maneuvering, including the purge of progressive politicians disloyal to him, means he effectively owns the Democratic Party nomination and has the clearest path to the presidency,” he said.
