South Korea has scheduled a snap election for June 3 to replace President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was impeached in December for attempting to impose martial law, then formally removed from office last Friday by the South Korean Constitutional Court.
Yoon touched off South Korea’s worst political crisis in decades on December 3 by declaring martial law to counter the influence of what he called “subversive anti-state elements” and “North Korean communist forces” among the political opposition.
Yoon accused these forces of “paralyzing” his administration by threatening judges, attempting to remove top officials, and using obstructionist tactics in the legislature. His martial law order was overturned in a matter of hours by the legislature, which managed to hold an emergency session despite his efforts to physically prevent them from meeting.
Yoon was impeached and effectively neutralized on December 14, but the process of removing him from office took months to play out. The first interim president who replaced him, Han Duck-soo, was himself impeached after only a few days on the job because the opposition accused him of slow-walking the appointment of Constitutional Court judges who would be required to remove Yoon from office.
Han was succeeded as temporary president by deputy prime minister and finance minister Choi Sang-mok, but on March 23 the Constitutional Court reversed Han’s impeachment and restored him as acting president. He will remain as acting president until the June 3 election.
Several contenders began expressing interest in the presidency as soon as the date for the snap election was announced. Acting President Han Duck-soo does not appear to be among them.
Given Yoon’s dramatic downfall, his People Power Party (PPP) – the more conservative of South Korea’s two major parties – looks to be fighting an uphill battle to keep the presidency. Yoon did, however, have a large number of devoted supporters who have constantly demonstrated in support of him. They regard his impeachment and removal from office as a crime against democracy, and are probably eager to vote for PPP again, but rallying them around a single candidate could be difficult.
“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,” Professor Leif-Eric Easley of Seoul’s Ewha University told the Associated Press (AP) on Tuesday.
The “conspiracy” Easley referred to was Yoon’s theory that China rigged parliamentary elections to put the opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) in power and undermine South Korea’s relationship with the United States.
The good news for PPP is that, much as with Canada’s Liberal Party and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the party’s standing with voters could rebound now that the polarizing Yoon is out of the picture.
The AP mentioned four leading conservative hopefuls, including two who supported Yoon to the end – Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo and Hong Joon-pyo, the mayor of Daegu – and two who supported removing Yoon from office, namely former PPP leader Han Dong-hoon and senior legislator Ahn Cheol-soo.
Yoon himself could retain enough influence to play kingmaker within the party, since so many PPP voters believe he was treated unfairly. On the other hand, he still faces charges of insurrection for his martial law order, for which he could be sentenced to life in prison, or even the death penalty.
Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo resigned from his post on Tuesday and formally declared his candidacy. Kim is not actually a member of the PPP party, although he recently said he would “carefully” consider joining if he ran for the presidency.
Kim is very popular with South Korean conservatives and PPP stalwarts, having stood behind Yoon and his equally troubled predecessor Park Geun-hye, but his outspoken style could alienate some centrists. For example, during a 2019 debate he suggested then-president Moon Jae-in, a DPK liberal, “deserves to be executed by firing squad” for his incompetence. The short and intense post-Yoon 2025 campaign will not be a great time for Kim to be reminded of his past enthusiasm for firing squads.
Lee Jae-myung, the populist leader of the left-wing DPK who narrowly lost the 2022 election to Yoon Suk-yeol, is the obvious leader among opposition candidates – but he faces his own legal problems after a string of corruption scandals.
Lee is currently facing five criminal charges, including a bribery charge linked to a South Korean firm that allegedly transferred $8 million to North Korea, and no less than five people connected to investigations of Lee have turned up dead. Yoon’s supporters will have a field day portraying Lee as the exact type of North Korea-linked subversive Yoon was trying to stop with his martial law order.
Lee has proven politically resilient, however, having recovered from a rather humiliating loss to the political neophyte Yoon in 2022 and survived a potential revolt among the DPK after the party did well in last year’s legislative elections. He might be able to sell himself as the sort of deft dealmaker and fiery populist South Korea needs to handle U.S. President Donald Trump.
Lee looks to be the only serious DPK candidate for the nomination, while Kim could be jousting against up to nine PPP candidates in a brief primary campaign. This advantage was reflected in Friday’s Gallup poll of South Korean voters, which put Lee in first place with 34 percent, trailed badly by Kim with nine percent and former PPP leader Han Dong-hoon at five percent.
In a head-to-head matchup, Gallup’s poll said Lee would beat Kim by 55-35 percent, and Han by 52-31 percent. Lee fared slightly worse against PPP Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo and Daegu mayor Hong Joon-pyo, leading them by 17 and 16 points, respectively.
