After a chaotic 6 months, South Koreans will elect a new president – and hope for bold leadership

On June 3, South Koreans will head to the polls to choose the country’s new president. The election may draw to a close one of the most chaotic and contentious periods in the country’s post-1987 democratic era.

South Korea has been embroiled in a political crisis since December, when former President Yoon Suk Yeol disastrously declared martial law.

Yoon ordered security forces to block lawmakers from entering the National Assembly, leading to a dramatic late night confrontation. His unconstitutional decree was overturned after just six hours.

The fall-out was equally dramatic: Yoon was impeached and removed from office in a drawn-out process that was not finally resolved until April.

This period coincided with massive street demonstrations both opposing and supporting Yoon, a far-right assault on a courthouse and a physical stand-off between investigators and Yoon’s personal security team.

The country, meanwhile, has cycled through three short-lived caretaker leaders.

With weak economic growth and high costs of living, in addition to an equally challenging security environment, South Korea is in desperate need of bold and effective leadership.

Who are the candidates?

The Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung is the clear frontrunner to be the next president, after finishing a close second in the previous 2022 election.

Recent polling put the veteran left-leaning politician at around 49% support as the race entered the final week.

This is a double-digit lead over his main conservative opponent, Kim Moon-soo, polling at 35%. Another conservative candidate, Lee Jun-seok, is polling at 11%. Notably, for the first time since 2007, there are no female candidates standing to be president.

The high levels of support for Lee Jae-myung suggest a widespread desire among the public to repudiate Yoon’s martial law declaration.

Kim, the labour minister in Yoon’s administration, has apologised for December’s declaration. But his opponents have continued to question him about it.

Kim’s challenge has been to build a coalition of moderates and mainstream conservatives who firmly opposed the martial law declaration, while also winning support from those who believe far-right conspiracy theories around election fraud. Yoon, the former president, is continuing to promote these narratives.

Lee’s compelling background

Lee Jae-myung’s personal story has uplifting parallels with South Korea’s own history of economic and political development.

Lee was born into poverty; the exact date of his birth is not known. He worked in factories from a very young age and permanently injured his left arm in an industrial accident when he was still a child.

Lee went on to earn a scholarship to study law and, by the late 1980s, had established himself as a labour lawyer and activist.

This activist image was highlighted when he live-streamed himself dramatically scaling a fence to enter the National Assembly and vote down Yoon’s martial law declaration in December. He has previously compared himself to populist, progressive US Senator Bernie Sanders.

More recently, however, he has moderated his political rhetoric and policy platform to appeal to centrists and even some conservative voters.

This shift may also help shield Lee from the “red-baiting” claims left-leaning South Korean candidates typically face from conservative opponents that they are “communists”, “pro-China”, or “pro-North Korea”.

But Lee is also plagued by legal troubles, including corruption charges linked to a land development project. These charges, frequently highlighted by his opponents, risk derailing his administration if he wins the election.

What are the main issues?

Some international commentators have focused on how the next president will handle North Korea. South Koreans, however, are more interested in the candidates’ plans to fix the country’s troubled economy.

Lee Jae-myung has pledged to immediately establish an emergency economic taskforce if he takes office.

There has also been a vigorous debate over South Korea’s future energy policy. Kim favours expanding nuclear energy production to around 60% of the country’s energy mix. Lee has voiced safety concerns about nuclear power, arguing “the era of building more reactors should come to an end”.

Additionally, questions remain over potential constitutional reform to end South Korea’s so-called “imperial presidency” system, which has been blamed for centralising too much power in the hands of the president.

The system dates back to the rewriting of the constitution following mass protests in 1987. This established direct presidential elections and a single, five-year term.

Both Lee and Kim support changing this to a four-year, two-term presidential system, similar to the United States.

Big challenges lie ahead

On the international stage, the new leader will face an uphill battle negotiating with US President Donald Trump over his punitive tariffs. Trump imposed 25% tariffs on South Korean goods in April, but lowered them temporarily to 10% until early July.

Before his impeachment, Yoon was widely reported to be practising his golf skills to attempt to find common ground with Trump, much as former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did.

The new leader will also face massive challenges bringing South Korean society together in the current climate. Political polarisation and the spread of disinformation worsened under Yoon’s presidency – and these trends will be hard to reverse.