South Korea’s presidential election will be held on June 3. The last round of polls taken before polling is suspended under South Korean election law showed Lee Jae-myung, candidate of the left-wing Democratic Party (DP), with a solid but shrinking lead over Kim Moon-soo of the incumbent People Power Party (PPP).
PPP had a formidable hill to climb in this election, since it was made necessary by President Yoon Suk-yeol getting impeached and removed from office after he attempted to impose martial law in December 2024.
Yoon’s move launched the worst political crisis in recent history, a nonstop drama that saw an acting president almost immediately impeached by the furious opposition for allegedly slow-walking the process of removing Yoon.
The acting president, Han Duck-soo, was later reinstated by court order, which technically made him both the second and fifth presidents of South Korea over the past five months. He registered in early May as the PPP’s only presidential candidate for the June election but soon dropped out of the race after the party held a convention and chose Kim instead.
Some in the PPP saw Han as the better and more popular candidate, but one of the arguments against him was that he was too close to the ill-fated Yoon administration, having served as prime minister. These concerns appeared to be borne out on Tuesday, when South Korean police barred Han and former finance minister Choi Sang-mok from international travel because they are involved in the insurrection case against Yoon.
Kim, who was formerly Yoon’s labor minister, is a former labor activist turned staunch conservative. He is one of the few high-ranking PPP members who still believes it was wrong to remove Yoon from office, although he does not support Yoon’s attempt to impose martial law.
“I’ll form a strong alliance with anyone to prevent a rule by Lee Jae-myung and his Democratic Party forces. I’ll push for that in a procedure and method that our people and party members accept, and I’ll ultimately win,” Kim said when he won the PPP nomination on May 3.
Lee secured the DP nomination and became the front-runner in the race, even though he might be disqualified from holding office by a long-running corruption investigation.
“Lee Jae-myung is currently facing five court cases and has been involved in tragedies with many people around him dying,” Kim said on Tuesday, accusing some of Lee’s top staffers of being corrupt as well.
“Bring forth any concrete evidence that proves I committed corruption; I have never even met any business person, nor have they ever bought me a cup of coffee,” Lee responded.
In the final candidate debate on Tuesday, Kim accused Lee of being too soft on North Korea and seeking to “dismantle” the close alliance between South Korea and the United States.
Lee countered by saying Yoon’s martial law debacle damaged South Korea’s standing in the world and only a president from outside of PPP could fix it. He also opposed bringing American nuclear weapons into South Korea and was critical of America’s THAAD anti-missile defense system, saying South Korea should rely more upon its own defense technology.
“This election will decide whether the forces behind the insurrection return, or whether we are reborn as a hopeful new democratic republic. Please show that your vote is stronger than bullets, and that the true owners of this country are its people,” Lee said in his closing remarks.
Surveys over the weekend showed Lee, who once held a heavy lead over all challengers, was down to a 3.1 percent edge — but that was against both Kim and third-party challenger Lee Jun-seok of the New Reform Party (NRP) combined.
Lee Jae-myung had 49 percent support in the poll, compared to 35 percent for Kim and 11 percent for Lee Jun-seok. In hypothetical head-to-head matchups, Lee was about ten points ahead of either challenger. In the actual three-way race, every poll showed Lee with a lead of nine or ten points against Kim.
Kim spoke of “unity” at the debate, possibly hinting at a much-rumored last-minute merger with Lee Jun-seok and NRP to build a ticket that could win against Lee Jae-myung.
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