Photo: Lee Jae-myung. Credit: Presidential campaign of Lee Jae-myung.
The uncertainty is over. Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열 is removed from office, and the next presidential election is set for June 3, 2025. With around seven weeks to go, here are the points to watch for:
1. Can Lee Jae-myung 이재명 Win the Primary Without Acrimony? Forget about the fantasies of the Democratic Party chairman 민주당 당대표 losing in the primary. Lee leads in every poll, and has spent the last three years consolidating his control over the main liberal party. Although his internal rivals - Kim Dong-yeon 김동연, Kim Gyeong-su 김경수 and Kim Du-gwan 김두관 - are seasoned veterans with significant followings, there is no realistic scenario in which Lee fails to win the nomination.
But how he wins will matter. In the 2022 presidential election, Lee’s primary run against former prime minister Lee Nak-yeon 이낙연 was so bitter that it likely cost Lee Jae-myung a meaningful amount of votes in what became the narrowest presidential election in South Korean history. Lee Nak-yeon subsequently sealed his own political fate by leaving the Democratic Party, and his faction was expunged for having voted to allow Lee Jae-myung to be arrested by Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열’s prosecutors. (See previous coverage, “Lee Jae-myung Faces a Mutiny.”)
It does not help that Lee’s most ardent supporters and closest proxies are a thin-skinned bunch. They have their reasons, to be fair; Lee has spent the past three years battling unimaginably difficult challenges, including being stabbed in the neck. But their reflexive defensiveness against any challenger has been a turn-off for many liberal voters. Even if the 2025 presidential election does not end up being as close as the 2022 one, an ugly primary victory for Lee could put him at an early disadvantage.
2. Can the People Power Party be Salvaged? It remains to be seen whether the main conservative party can pull itself out of a death spiral. It now owns two consecutive presidential impeachments. Most of its supporters are the flag-waving far-right, beholden to delusional conspiracy theories about China and North Korea rigging elections. (See previous coverage, “The People Who Reject Democracy.”) No candidate can win the PPP’s nomination without pandering to the dead-ender martial law supporters - but any such pandering is guaranteed to be anathema to the wider electorate.
Several prominent conservatives have surveyed the field and pronounced the PPP a lost cause. Seoul mayor O Se-hun 오세훈 서울시장, a moderate who had seemed all but certain to run, instead made the surprising announcement that he will sit the election out. Former Assembly Member Yu Seung-min 유승민 - a former economist who has long been considered the champion of “rational conservatives 합리적인 보수” - said he would run, but as an independent.
Acting President Han Deok-su 한덕수 대통령 권한대행 is reportedly weighing an independent run with an eye toward a unity ticket with the PPP later in the campaign - the same hostile takeover strategy that conservatives considered pursuing with Ban Ki-moon 반기문, then Secretary General of the United Nations, in the wake of Park Geun-hye 박근혜’s impeachment in 2017.
3. Will Yoon Suk-yeol Sabotage the PPP’s Chances? The PPP’s attempts to rehabilitate itself may continue running aground on the rocks of the impeached president, who has made clear that he will not go quietly into the night. Yoon has made most of his freedom ever since being released from pre-trial detention on legally dubious grounds ahead of his criminal trial for insurrection. (See previous coverage, “Yoon Released.”) Before leaving the presidential residence, Yoon held a series of ostentatious dinners with PPP leadership. On the day of his departure, Yoon staged an impromptu rally with his supporters, declaring he would “find a new way for the nation and the people.”
Yoon’s continued public appearances may well be a gift for the Democratic Party, reminding voters of the self-coup attempt and impeachment that necessitated the snap presidential election in the first place. Candidates like Kim Mun-su 김문수 and Na Gyeong-won 나경원 have sought to appeal to Yoon’s supporters by adopting the same paranoid, conspiratorial rhetoric, further complicating the PPP’s attempts to moderate its image.
4. Will Any Third Party Candidate Make a Difference? In the last presidential election, Yoon eked out a razor-thin 0.7% victory, helped by his last-minute unity ticket with An Cheol-su 안철수. Meanwhile, Lee lost votes to the Justice Party 정의당’s candidate Sim Sang-jeong 심상정, who took 2.4% of the vote. The minor leftist party paid dearly for its role Yoon’s Yoon victory in the 2024 General Election 총선거, when liberal voters voted them out of the legislature.
This time, the shoe may be on the other foot. On the liberal side, the Reform Korea Party 조국혁신당 - the third largest party in the Assembly - announced that it would not field a presidential candidate. Although other minor leftist parties like the Progressive Party 진보당 and the Justice Party have said they will run candidates, their appeal is likely to be minimal to liberal voters, for whom the 2022 outcome is still fresh in memory.
Meanwhile, Assembly Member Lee Jun-seok 이준석 will run under the banner of the New Reform Party 개혁신당. The former PPP leader, who made his name by appealing to young men’s toxic sexism, is now positioning himself as a moderate alternative to the geriatric and unfashionable far-right. Lee’s camp posits that the 40-year-old can shoot for second place and further raise his profile if the PPP sticks with pro-Yoon candidates like Kim Mun-su - making it unlikely that conservatives will manage to put together the kind of united front necessary for a fighting shot at beating Lee Jae-myung.
