On June 3, 2025, South Korea will hold a presidential election, announced following the Constitutional Court’s final decision to remove Yoon Suk Yeol from power. The leading contenders for the presidency are opposition leader Lee Jae-myung and former Minister of Labor Kim Moon-soo.
The Democratic Camp: Is a Convicted President Possible?
Formally, Lee faced two challengers: Kim Dong-yeon, the governor of Gyeonggi Province and a centrist who had previously run as an independent but withdrew in favor of the Democrats during the 2022 presidential race, and Kim Dong-soo, the former governor of South Gyeongsang Province and a close ally of Moon Jae-in. The latter had recently been pardoned after serving time in a scandal involving the Democrats’ use of software to meddle in the electoral process. However, Lee secured nearly 90% in the intra-party vote.
Lee is widely seen as the frontrunner in the presidential race. Although his support has been gradually declining, the gap between him and other candidates remains significant. Averaged poll data suggests he may garner around 50% of the vote, with his nearest rival trailing at approximately 35%. Still, predicting a confident victory would be premature. First, Lee’s high approval rating is matched by an equally high disapproval rating. Many respondents who claimed to be “undecided” in polls are believed to be reluctant to openly admit support for right-wing candidates.
Second, legal risks persist, despite the Democratic Party’s efforts to neutralize them. Although a “miraculous” appellate court ruling allowed Lee Jae-myung to participate in the race, on May 1, 2025, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s acquittal and ordered a retrial. This decision, legally sound and based on the weight of evidence rather than political considerations, was met with fierce resistance from the Democrats. The opposition immediately branded the Chief Justice a “national traitor,” threatened him with impeachment, and decried a “judicial coup,” comparing the situation to Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempt to impose martial law. Under South Korean law, a candidate handed a suspended sentence or a fine exceeding one million won loses the right to hold public office for five to ten years. For Lee, this would mean political death.
To eliminate this threat, the Democrats are attempting to amend the criminal code to decriminalize the charges Lee is facing. They are also pushing legislation that would grant full immunity to any person elected president, effectively halting all criminal proceedings against them. Interestingly, a similar scenario occurred in 2007 with Lee Myung-bak: one of the wealthiest candidates, later convicted of corruption, ran while under criminal investigation and won by the largest margin in South Korean history. At the time, the Democrats were outraged and passionately argued for the rule of law.
Under parliamentary pressure, the court reached a Solomonic compromise: hearings in Lee Jae-myung’s case would continue — but only after the election, so as not to derail his campaign with a guilty verdict. If Lee does become president, it would be the first instance of a head of state taking office with open criminal cases pending. The Constitution allows a sitting president to be prosecuted only for rebellion or treason (ironically, this is exactly what Yoon Suk Yeol is currently on trial for), but the legal status of cases initiated before assuming office remains unclear — potentially a seed of a new constitutional crisis.
The Conservative Camp: Division and the Search for Unity
The conservative party, People Power Party (PPP), has been deeply fractured following the imposition of martial law and the impeachment of the president. Some conservatives, including then-party leader Han Dong-hoon, condemned the imposition of martial law, and a few even supported impeachment. Initially, eight candidates joined the race, and the first round of primaries reduced that number to four.
- Han Dong-hoon: A former ally of Yoon from the prosecution service, ex-Minister of Justice, and former party leader. A young politician with an independent stance: he opposed martial law but also opposed impeachment.
- Hong Joon-pyo: Mayor of Daegu, a conservative stronghold, and a classic right-wing politician. He ran against Moon Jae-in in 2017, lost the 2022 primary to Yoon Suk Yeol, and later became one of his critics.
- Ahn Cheol-soo: Often dubbed the “Korean Kaspersky,” he has positioned himself as a third-force candidate but repeatedly withdrew in favor of stronger contenders. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the most consistent critic of Yoon, opposing both martial law and supporting impeachment.
- Kim Moon-soo: A former left-wing labor activist who switched sides to become a conservative and was appointed Minister of Labor under Yoon. He was the only cabinet member who refused to apologize for martial law and openly supported Yoon’s direction. He emerged as the finalist and main conservative candidate.
Independent Candidate: Han Duck-soo
Former Prime Minister (2007–2009) under Roh Moo-hyun, a former leftist who shifted to the conservative camp, announced his candidacy as an “independent.” Unlike Kim, Han has greater political weight and is less polarizing. His core proposal is a “technical presidency” for three years, aimed at revising the Constitution: reducing presidential powers and resolving the chronic conflict between the president and the parliament — a key cause of the current crisis. Initially, he remained on the sidelines, and there was speculation that conservatives saw him as the more desirable figure.
The leadership change once again triggered a local crisis. Han’s intended successor, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, was unacceptable to parliament, which was preparing to impeach him. Just ten minutes before the vote, Choi resigned. The next in the line of succession, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Lee Joo-ho, now serves as acting head of state until the presidential election.
However, two strong conservative candidates — Kim and Han D. — could not afford to run separately, as that would split the vote and ensure Lee’s victory. The leadership of the People Power Party began pressuring Kim to unite with Han, or more precisely, to step aside in his favor. The negotiations were difficult. Acting party leader Kwon Seong-dong even declared a hunger strike to speed up the process, but neither side was willing to yield. The party leadership then simply annulled the results of the preliminary primaries to install Han as the official candidate. This bizarre move surprised many and, frankly, gained sympathy for the Democrats — demonstrating that it wasn’t just them willing to change the rules mid-game for the sake of power. Kim, however, publicly declared he had been stabbed in the back and demanded a new vote among party members, which he won once again. Han withdrew his candidacy, the previous leadership resigned, and Kim’s rhetoric softened, now including criticism of Yoon Suk Yeol, who stepped away from the conservative party to avoid becoming a liability.
Promises and conspiracy theories
In another context, the author might have focused on analyzing the candidates’ platforms in detail. But in South Korea, the political agenda has been sacrificed to the power struggle, and factional logic dominates the stage. On one hand, every candidate promises to support all things good and oppose all things bad; on the other, if conservatives call a cat black, Democrats are obligated to insist it’s white — regardless of whether it’s ginger, gray, or even a cat at all.
What truly stands out is the extreme emotional polarization surrounding the election — so intense that it may remind a Russian reader of 1996. Conservatives accuse Lee Jae-myung of ties to the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Chinese Communist Party, and organized crime. Democrats, in turn, accuse the authorities of preparing a military coup or even plotting an assassination of Lee. There is no shortage of kompromat, and the most explosive revelations are being saved for last — so pre-election surprises are far from unlikely.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, Leading Research Fellow at the Centre for Korean Studies of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
