SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Lee Jae-myung, a liberal who wants greater economic parity in South Korea and warmer ties with North Korea, became the main opposition party's presidential candidate Sunday, solidifying his position as front-runner to succeed recently ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The former Democratic Party chief had led the opposition-controlled parliament’s impeachment of Yoon over the imposition of martial law in December. The country's Constitutional Court formally dismissed Yoon earlier this month, prompting a snap presidential election on June 3, which will give the winner a full, single five-year term.
The Democratic Party announced Lee won its presidential nomination with nearly 90% of the votes cast during the party’s primary that ended Sunday, defeating two competitors.
Lee is the clear favorite to win the election.
In a Gallup Korea poll released Friday, 38% of respondents chose Lee as their preferred new president, while all other aspirants obtained single-digit support ratings. The main conservative People Power Party is to nominate its candidate next weekend, and its four presidential hopefuls competing to win the party ticket won a combined 23% of support ratings in the Gallup survey.
It will be Lee's third bid to run for president.
Lee, 60, lost the 2022 election to Yoon in the narrowest margin recorded in the country’s presidential elections. In 2017, Lee ranked third in a Democratic Party presidential primary.
He served as the governor of South Korea’s most populous Gyeonggi province and a mayor of Seongnam city and has long established an image as an anti-establishment figure who can eliminate deep-rooted unfairness, inequality and corruption in South Korea. But his critics view him as a populist who relies on stoking divisions and demonizing opponents and worry his rule would likely end up intensifying a domestic division.
Lee currently faces five trials for corruption and other criminal charges. However, if he becomes president, those trials will likely stop as he’d be given special presidential immunity from most criminal charges.
Lee's rise comes as conservatives are struggling to win back public confidence in the wake of Yoon's martial law decree that plunged the country into huge turmoil. The People Power Party is grappling with internal feuding between senior members defending Yoon’s action and reformist members who voted for his impeachment.
“This election is a venue where the people hand down their judgment on Yoon’s martial law imposition after the Constitutional Court issued a judicial judgment on it,” said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership. “It’s subsequently difficult for the People Power Party to win the election if they slide over the martial law issue and fail to apologize.”
Lee made headlines by livestreaming his climbing over the walls of the ϳԹ Assembly after Yoon issued his martial law decree, as troops encircled the building. Lee and other lawmakers eventually managed to vote down Yoon’s decree, forcing him to lift it within six hours of its declaration.
