South Korea To Elect A New President In June 2025: Some Projections For Future – Analysis

On 3 June 2025, South Korea will elect a new president in a snap election after conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol was thrown out by the Constitutional Court and currently under criminal trial for charges of insurrection following an ill-fated imposition of martial law on 3 December 2024. The announcement was made by acting President Han Duck-soo four days after the Constitutional Court unanimously removed Yoon from office. By South Korea’s law, elections must be held within 60 days. The next president will serve a full 5-year term.

Following the unfortunate and unpleasant political developments leading to Yoon’s ouster, it is feared deep polarisation shall take place leading to two-way showdown between Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) and its chief liberal rival, the Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the National Assembly. However, with the PPP’s image and reputation considerably dented over the Yoon issue, it will be an uphill battle for the PPP as it struggles to restore public confidence and heal severe internal divisions left by Yoon’s ill-conceived martial law move. The focus of attention is on whether conservatives can regroup and field a strong candidate to compete against likely Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung who looks at present as a clear front-runner.

Lee Jae-myung is already nominated by South Korea’s liberal opposition to run for president following Yoon’s rapid rise in South Korean politics and an abrupt downfall over his short-lived martial law. Lee is already a powerful party leader who faced no major challengers inside the party. He narrowly lost the 2022 election to Yoon, led the party through a crisis during which many of its members faced off against troops sent by Yoon to encircle the National Assembly building, voted down martial law and later impeached Yoon. 

The conservatives are in disarray following Yoon’s baffling decision to enact martial law, which brought armed troops into Seoul’s streets and evoked the country’s traumatic memories of past military rule. That was a blow to his party’s reputation even though the party was not directly involved. Some reformist party members openly criticized Yoon’s actions and cast ballots to impeach him, triggering a feud with the party’s old guard who supported the president.

Despite that Yoon has been thrown out, he remains still defiant. He has some diehard supporters who regularly stage massive rallies in his support. Many of his supporters share an unfounded perception that Yoon is a victim of a leftist, North Korea-sympathizing opposition that rigged elections to gain a legislative majority and plotted to remove a patriotic leader. The reality now however is the 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. The party’s current leadership is filled with Yoon loyalists, and that will likely let the internal divide continue and undermine its electoral prospects, observes Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership.

Among the leading PPP presidential hopefuls, Labour Minister Kim Moon Soo is considered to be the most pro-Yoon. He along with Hong Joon-pyo opposed impeaching Yoon. Former party leader Han Dong-hoon and senior party lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo supported removing him from office. The last major candidate is Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who has maintained an ambiguous position. So, the PPP is a fragmented lot.

Since Yoon faces a criminal trial, he would obviously prefer the prominent PPP presidential hopeful who he would expect to stand by him. Besides the charge with rebellion, Yoon also faces with other charges like abuse of power. Yoon’s present position is vulnerable before law as he has lost presidential immunity, which protected him from most criminal prosecutions. Between the pro-Yoon loyalists and critics, there are moderates and the younger generation in their 20s and 30s, who are swing voters and their voice could be decisive.  

As regards the frontrunner, Opposition leader Lee is considered by his supporters as a populist reformer. But critics regard him as a demagogue who creates divisions within the party and demonises his rivals. Lee also lacks a clean political image. There are ongoing trials against Lee for corruption. Lee also faces other criminal charges. If Lee takes advantage of the situation created by Yoon, and wins the presidential race, those trials will likely stop as he would enjoy presidential immunity. Yoon has accused Lee’s Democratic Party of abusing its parliamentary majority status to obstruct his agenda, impeach senior officials and slash the government’s budget bill. Yoon justifies his martial law declaration as a desperate attempt to draw public support of his fight against “wickedness” of Lee’s party. Yet, with the court showing Yoon the door, there could be no stopping Lee from the presidency despite some disgruntled elements within his Democratic Party, which remains a minority one.

Impact on Foreign Relations  

South Korea’s domestic political turmoil is likely to impact the country’s foreign relations to some extent. The power vacuum at the present moment has impeded Seoul’s efforts to negotiate with President Donald Trump on the tariff issue. The slowing growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy is another issue to worry about for the incoming leadership. The new leadership to be known on 3 June shall have testing time in dealing with both domestic and foreign policies.   

Yoon’s Labour Minister Kim Moon-soo, not officially a member of the PPP, is upbeat as he claims that he has responsibility to solve national difficulties. He realises that the country’s economic conditions during a “severe national crisis” have hurt the livelihood of the people and he wants to address this. 

Then, there is Ahn Cheol-soo, a PPP lawmaker, who was the first to vote for Yoon’s impeachment, claims he is a “cleaner candidate than anyone else”. He also vowed to secure new economic growth engines including artificial intelligence to counter Trump’s trade policies. Ahn fought the last three presidential elections, winning more than 21 per cent of the popular vote in 2017, but dropped out and endorsed other candidates in the other two. But recent surveys do not indicate he has an edge over other popular candidates from such as the Democratic Party’s Lee. 

The experience of the past two conservative presidents has already dented the PPP’s image. Both Kim and Ahn shall try to overcome their party’s second impeachment in as many presidencies. Conservative Park Geun-hye was impeached, removed from office, and imprisoned in 2017 over a corruption scandal. The liberal Lee of the Democratic Party who lost to Yoon by a razor-thin margin in 2022, is a clear front-runner, but faces legal challenges of his own. These include multiple trials for charges such as violating the election law and bribery. A recent Gallup poll showed 34 per cent of respondents supported Lee as the next leader, while 9 per cent backed Kim, 5 per cent opted for former PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, 4 per cent chose Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo, and 2 per cent went for Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon. 

Amid months of political turmoil since Yoon stunned the country by declaring martial law, triggering his impeachment by parliament and the impeachment of acting leader Han. Han’s impeachment was later overturned by the Constitutional Court and he stays in the role of acting president until the election.        

Impact of Lee’s likely win on Ties with Japan

The rise of Democratic candidate Lee Jae-myung and the likelihood of him emerging as the winner on 3 June election unnerve both Tokyo and Washington. Under Lee’s leadership, all efforts made by Yoon to revitalise ties with Tokyo and Washington are feared to be undone. Recent polls show Lee outpacing top contenders from the PPP. Barring any major shift in public sentiment or an unexpected alliance among his rivals, Lee appears well-positioned to win the 3 June presidential race.

During his tenure Yoon made ties with Japan and the US as the cornerstone of his foreign policy. During his brief tenure, Yoon signed two landmark agreements – the Camp David Accords and the Washington Declaration in 2023. With the prospect of Lee becoming the next president, this hangs in balance now.

Lee had lambasted Yoon’s Japan policy as one of “humiliation and subservience”. He fiercely opposed Yoon administration’s third party compensation plan for wartime labour victims, a workaround meant to resolve tensions stemming from the preceding Moon Jae In era. When on 24 August 2023 Tokyo released treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant, Lee escalated his rhetoric, likening the move to a “second Pacific War”. He openly called for scrapping the wartime compensation scheme and questioned the safety of Fukushima water release on several occasions.  

There is a possibility that Lee could reignite long-dormant historical disputes once he becomes president. Besides wartime labour issue, the comfort women controversy could flare up again. Lee is also opposed to the trilateral military cooperation between Japan, South Korea and the US, and has often complained that Japan has not shown the slightest remorse for its past. Lee sees Japan’s deeper military involvement as a gateway to remilitarization reminiscent of its imperial past — one that could ultimately threaten the contested territory of Takeshima (Koreans call it Dokdo).

Like Japan, the US too is not so comfortable with the prospect of Lee becoming the next president of South Korea. American lawmakers and experts have voiced similar apprehensions. If Lee continues with his anti-Japan stance, that could encourage North Korea and China to seize the opportunity to weaken the US-South Korea alliance. Notwithstanding Trump’s obsession with the tariffs, a dramatic shift in policy under a left-wing leadership would not position Trump to rejoice.   

Trump shall have another reason to worry if Lee becomes the President. He might weaken the military cooperation with the US. The US would be wary that Lee and his party’ affinity for Beijing could gather steam. Such a prospect could raise red flags in the Trump circle, where containing China remains a core pillar of the US diplomatic strategy. If Lee leans closer to Beijing and drifts closer to socialism, the possibility of a pro-communist regime would severely undermine Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Seoul’s leftward drift could also affect collaboration in critical sectors such as civilian nuclear energy, shipbuilding and economic security.  It could transpire that South Korea’s domestic and foreign policies could see tectonic shift if Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung emerges victorious and becomes President in June 2025.