South Korea’s New President Won’t End Its Political Crisis
Liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung won a comfortable victory in South Korea’s snap presidential election. But far-right forces are still gaining strength, especially among young men attracted by misogynist scapegoating of women.
Lee Jae-myung and his wife celebrating at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, on June 4, 2025. (Yao Qilin / Xinhua via Getty Images)
On June 3, a sixty-year-old maverick candidate from South Korea’s liberal Democratic Party (DPK) won the presidency in a snap election following a botched coup six months earlier by former president Yoon Suk-yeol. On the surface, Lee Jae-myung’s victory seemed like a foregone conclusion.
However, lurking behind the outcome was the reality of a young democracy riven by the rightward drift of establishment politics and the rapid rise of the far right. In contrast, South Korea’s labor movement is divided, at a moment when some on the Left are striving to navigate the crisis and seize new opportunities.
Fragile Victory
Lee took 49.4 percent of the vote in an election with one of the highest voter turnouts on record, nearly 80 percent, against the backdrop of mass rallies and protests that expedited Yoon’s impeachment and the calling of the snap election. His main opponent, Kim Moon-soo of Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP), took 41.1 percent.
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