By Ramon Pacheco Pardo
26.5.2025
Introduction
South Korea will hold its next presidential election on 3 June 2025. The election will take place exactly six months after former president Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, on 3 December 2024. The martial law declaration was the first in South Korea since 1980, when the country was ruled by military strongmen leading dictatorial regimes. Yoon’s declaration thus came as a shock to South Koreans. In the aftermath of the declaration, South Korea has shown that it is a mature democracy with a strong democratic institutional set-up. The National Assembly voted down the martial law declaration within hours. The vast majority of the South Korean population expressed its opposition to Yoon’s declaration. The Constitutional Court voted unanimously to uphold Yoon’s impeachment, as voted by the National Assembly shortly after his declaration. A large majority of South Koreans accepted the decision by the Constitutional Court, which triggered the presidential election taking place in early June 2025. The new president will take office straight away, being sworn in and starting their presidency the following day.
Who are the main candidates?
Six candidates are vying to become the next South Korean president. The two main candidates are Lee Jae-myung from the Democratic Party of Korea (DP) and Kim Moon-soo from the People Power Party (PPP). Lee is the favourite to win the election, leading the polls by comfortable margins over Kim. Lee has long been a feature in South Korean politics. Born to an impoverished family, Lee started factory work after finishing primary school to help support his family. He was able to finish schooling and graduate with a degree in law from Chung-Ang University. Upon graduation, he worked as a civil rights and human rights lawyer before entering politics. His political career has included stints as mayor of Seongnam (2010-2018), today the tenth largest city in South Korea, governor of Gyeonggi (2018-2021), the most populous province in South Korea where Seoul is located and National Assembly legislator. Lee was the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the 2022 election, losing against Yoon by less than a percentage point – the smallest margin in South Korea’s democratic history. Long known for his bombastic approach to politics, Lee has moderated his tone during the current presidential campaign and sought to attract the votes of non-partisan voters as well as conservatives.
Kim has a long political career, yet is considered to be a surprising candidate, having only returned to politics in 2022 to lead Yoon’s Economic, Social and Labour Council before his appointment as Minister of Employment and Labour in 2024. Born during the Korean War, Kim was accepted into Seoul National University (SNU) upon finishing his schooling. Kim became a pro-democracy activist in the 1970s, leading to his eventual arrest and torture. Kim was also expelled from SNU due to his political activism. Kim would go on to graduate in 1994, 25 years after entering the university. Kim became a conservative in the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and upon receiving a call to serve during the Kim Young-sam government. The People Power Party candidate then went on to work as a National Assembly legislator, before his election to serve as the governor of Gyeonggi province (2006-2014). Kim only refused to condemn Yoon’s martial law declaration recently, raising questions about his position on the matter. This has hindered his campaign.
What are the main issues?
The next South Korean president will have to prioritise the negotiation of a tariff agreement with the United States (US). South Korea has been hit hard by the tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration, being slapped with tariffs of 25%. In particular, some of South Korea’s strategic sectors such as vehicles, vehicle parts and steel have suffered punitive tariffs. The next South Korean president will seek to reach an agreement with the Trump administration covering tariffs and other economic and, potentially, security matters by 8 July 2025. This is the deadline when the 90-day pause to the implementation of the tariffs will end. South Korea was one of the first countries to launch negotiations with the US on this matter, and both sides have indicated that they think that an agreement is within reach.
Boosting economic growth will be another priority for the next South Korean president. South Korea’s GDP growth per capita, average salary growth, employment and unemployment rates and export and inward investment figures suggest that the country’s economy is performing well. However, the headline GDP growth figure remains lower than the equivalent pre-COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to anxiety among policymakers, businesspeople and the general public that we have reached “peak Korea”, and that the country’s economy will be stuck in a low growth mode for years to come. This is coupled with issues such as the birth rate, that is now increasing, yet remains low, relatively low yet higher-than-desirable youth unemployment rate or well-publicised wealth inequality. Overall, many South Koreans feel that their economy needs to perform better to maintain the country’s high living standards.
Healing the political divide is another issue that the next president will be asked to tackle. The differences in socioeconomic policies between South Korean liberals and conservatives are quite narrow, in particular compared to countries such as Argentina, Romania or the US where populism has taken root. Yet, South Korea suffers from the polarisation also affecting other democracies precisely because the Democratic Party and People Power Party’s socioeconomic policies are very similar to each other. Instead of competing in terms of significant policy differences, the liberal and conservative camps engage in ad hominem politics, for example accusing the opposition of being pro-North Korea and pro-China – a line of conservative attack on the Democratic Party – or being opposed to democracy itself – a line used by liberals to attack the People Power Party. Whether it is possible to address this political divide remains to be seen. At the very least, South Korean voters will expect the next president to tone down the verbal attacks on the opposition and to reach out across the aisle when crafting their policies.
__________
The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) or the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
