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Park Chan-kyong

A human rights lawyer turned populist powerhouse, Lee Jae-myung is once again on the cusp of South Korea’s presidency – pledging pragmatic nationalism and a sharp break from his impeached predecessor’s combative, ideology-driven style.
The 61-year-old liberal formally announced his candidacy on Thursday in a recorded video, saying he stepped in to “answer the call” of a public still reeling from the impeachment and removal of President Yoon Suk-yeol. A snap election is set for June 3.
Lee, who lost the presidency to Yoon by the narrowest margin in South Korean history in 2022, now enjoys a commanding lead in the polls. A Gallup Korea poll released this week showed him with 34 per cent support – nearly four times that of his nearest rival.
He stepped down as leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Wednesday to focus fully on his campaign.
With South Korea grappling with a political vacuum, rising regional tensions and growing economic uncertainty, Lee’s potential return is drawing fresh international attention. His focus on national interest and diplomatic balance has positioned him as a clear alternative to Yoon’s hardline, values-driven foreign policy.
“It is important to maintain close ties with our ally, the United States, and to strengthen trilateral cooperation with Japan,” Lee said in the video announcing his candidacy.
“But the guiding principle must be our national interest. We will cooperate where cooperation is needed and compete where competition is necessary while managing any frictions appropriately.”


Balanced diplomacy
The message, aimed at both domestic and foreign audiences, aligns with what his foreign policy advisers say would be his approach if elected: repairing strained ties with China and Russia while preserving key security partnerships with Washington and Tokyo.
Lawmaker Wi Sung-lac, a former ambassador to Russia and senior figure in the DPK, said Lee would maintain overall policy continuity, with continued trilateral cooperation with the US and Japan forming the foundation of South Korea’s diplomacy.
“Ties with China and Russia became unnecessarily strained under Yoon,” Wi told This Week in Asia. “Lee will maintain policy continuity while seeking to stabilise those relationships.”
Wi said Lee was also likely to pursue dialogue with North Korea in an effort to reduce tensions – though he acknowledged that would be a major challenge, given that inter-Korean relations are at their lowest point in decades amid Pyongyang’s expanding nuclear and missile arsenal.
Wi is one of Lee’s key foreign policy advisers, alongside Cho Byung-jae, a chair professor at Kyungnam University and former head of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.
“No matter who wins the election, South Korea cannot afford drastic changes in its US-centred diplomacy due to its geopolitical realities,” Cho said.


Under Yoon’s predecessor, liberal president Moon Jae-in, Seoul sought to deepen strategic ties with China, despite lingering tensions over South Korea’s 2017 deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system – a move that Beijing strongly opposed. In response, China enacted economic retaliation measures against South Korea.
Yoon sharply criticised Moon’s approach as “spineless diplomacy” and instead pushed for tighter alignment with the US and Japan, framing his foreign policy around “universal values” such as liberal democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
In doing so, he frequently provoked Beijing – a move seen as an effort to rally his conservative base. He once referred to Covid-19 as the “Wuhan virus”, and more recently accused China of interfering in South Korean elections, a claim he used to help justify his declaration of martial law.
“When the next president is sworn in, both China and South Korea will likely seek to stabilise ties and move toward a strategic cooperative partnership,” said Cho.
He added that the coming Apec summit in Seoul this November could provide a venue for dialogue between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, amid rising trade tensions between the two powers.
On domestic issues, Lee has also emphasised pragmatic policies.
“The most important issue for all of us is how to make a living,” Lee said during his announcement speech, invoking the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s famous adage – “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice” – to emphasise his focus on practical, results-driven policies over ideological labels.
“Whether a policy is red or blue – whatever its ideological origin – doesn’t matter. What matters is whether it’s useful and necessary. That should be the ultimate standard,” he said.
Blaming “economic polarisation” for worsening social divisions, Lee also pledged to revive economic growth through major government investments in research and development and workforce training.

Comeback amid controversy
Despite his loss to Yoon in the 2022 presidential election, Lee was able to lead the DPK to a sweeping victory in last year’s parliamentary elections and currently enjoys strong support among liberal voters.
Lee had become the target of what his party called “politically motivated investigations” by prosecutors under Yoon, a former prosecutor general.
Lee was recently acquitted on appeal of a conviction for making false statements during his 2022 presidential campaign – a ruling that had briefly threatened to derail his political future. However, he still faces multiple ongoing trials, including bribery and corruption charges linked to a major land development scandal from his time as mayor of Seongnam.
“South Korea has an unfortunate history of presidents who broke the law and were removed from power and/or imprisoned after leaving office,” Leif-Eric Easley said, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
Still, Easley said it was unlikely that any of his legal cases would prevent him from winning the top office because “the judicial branch doesn’t want to be seen as deciding the presidential election”.
“There is a general consensus that South Korea’s political crisis should end with a vote by the people,” he added.
Lee Jun-han, a political-science professor at Incheon National University, predicted Lee would emerge victorious in the coming race, noting Moon easily beat his rival Hong Joon-pyo in the 2017 snap presidential election held after then conservative President Park Geun-hye was impeached.
The Gallup poll that showed Lee leading the race found that his top conservative contender, 73-year-old former labour minister Kim Moon-soo, had the support of just 9 per cent of voters.
Yoon’s ruling People Power Party (PPP) has yet to settle on a candidate and plans to hold a primary in May.
When South Gyeongsang Governor Lee Cheol-woo, one of the PPP’s candidates, visited Yoon on Wednesday, the ousted president told him to win and protect the country’s “free democracy”.

“President Yoon seemed very heartbroken, believing the Constitutional Court’s ruling had been overturned at the last moment [in favour of upholding his impeachment]. I’m worried because, unlike usual, he didn’t even have a single drink due to health reasons,” the governor said.
Born into poverty in rural North Gyeongsang, Lee Jae-myung worked in factories as a teenager before earning a law degree and building a career as a human rights lawyer focused on labour rights.
His assertive rhetoric and progressive welfare initiatives earned him national prominence as mayor of Seongnam and later governor of Gyeonggi Province.
But his confrontational style has also drawn sharp criticism from political opponents, who see him as an aggressive and reckless populist.
Additional reporting by Reuters


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Lee has pledged to take a pragmatic approach to foreign policy and the economy in sharp contrast with impeached president Yoon Suk-yeol


Lee has pledged to take a pragmatic approach to foreign policy and the economy in sharp contrast with impeached president Yoon Suk-yeol.


Who is South Korea’s presidential front runner Lee Jae-myung?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Lee has pledged to take a pragmatic approach to foreign policy and the economy in sharp contrast with impeached president Yoon Suk-yeol

Lee has pledged to take a pragmatic approach to foreign policy and the economy in sharp contrast with impeached president Yoon Suk-yeol