{"id":9450,"date":"2025-06-03T21:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T21:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=9450"},"modified":"2025-06-03T21:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T21:05:12","slug":"lee-jae-myung-wins-south-korea-presidency-months-after-martial-law-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=9450","title":{"rendered":"Lee Jae-myung wins South Korea presidency months after martial law protest"},"content":{"rendered":"
South Korea’s liberal party candidate, Lee Jae-myung, was elected president in Tuesday’s snap election, six months to the day after he evaded military cordons to vote against a shock martial law decree imposed by his ousted predecessor.<\/p>\n

Lee’s victory stands to usher in a political sea change in Asia’s fourth-largest economy, after the backlash against the martial law brought down Yoon Suk Yeol, the conservative outsider who narrowly beat Lee in the 2022 election.<\/p>\n

Nearly 80% of South Korea’s 44.39 million eligible voters cast their ballots, the highest turnout for a presidential election in the country since 1997, with Lee terming the polls “judgment day” against Yoon’s martial law and the People Power Party’s failure to distance itself from that decision.<\/p>\n

With more than 99% of the votes counted, the Democratic Party’s Lee stood at 49.3% to PPP candidate Kim Moon-soo’s 41.3%, according to National Election Commission data.<\/p>\n

A subdued Kim conceded the race and congratulated Lee in brief remarks to reporters.<\/p>\n

Lee had long been favoured to win, and his supporters erupted in cheers as exit polls by the country’s major broadcasters showed him defeating Kim by wide margins.<\/p>\n

In a brief speech to supporters gathered outside parliament after the polls closed, Lee said he would fulfil the duties of the office and bring unity to the country.<\/p>\n

“We can overcome this temporary difficulty with the combined strength of our people, who have great capabilities,” he said.<\/p>\n

He also vowed to revive the economy and seek peace with nuclear-armed North Korea through dialogue and strength.<\/p>\n

The martial law decree and the six months of ensuing turmoil, which saw three different acting presidents and multiple criminal insurrection trials for Yoon and several top officials, marked a stunning political self-destruction for the former leader and effectively handed the presidency to his main rival.<\/p>\n

Yoon was impeached by the Lee-led parliament, then removed from office by the Constitutional Court in April, less than three years into his five-year term, triggering the snap election that now stands to remake the country’s political leadership and foreign policies of a key US ally.<\/p>\n

Lee has accused the PPP of having condoned the martial law attempt by not fighting harder to thwart it and even trying to save Yoon’s presidency.<\/p>\n

Kim was Yoon’s labour minister when the former president declared martial law on December 3.<\/p>\n

“I was here on December 3 after martial was declared and December 14 when Yoon was impeached,” said Choi Mi-jeong, 55, a science teacher who gathered outside parliament to hear Lee speak. “Now Lee Jae-myung is becoming president. I hope he will become a leader who supports ordinary people, not vested interests, not a small number of riches.”<\/p>\n

US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a briefing that Washington was awaiting final certification before commenting.<\/p>\n

Official results were expected to be certified by the National Election Commission on Wednesday morning after ballots are sorted and counted by machine, then triple-checked by election officials by hand to verify accuracy.<\/p>\n

Just hours later, the inauguration ceremony is planned.<\/p>\n

Need for change<\/p>\n

Park Chan-dae, acting leader of Lee’s Democratic Party, told KBS that the projections suggest voters rejected the martial law attempt and are hoping for an improvement in their livelihoods.<\/p>\n

“I think people made a fiery judgment against the insurrection regime,” he said.<\/p>\n

The winner must tackle challenges including a society deeply scarred by divisions made more obvious since the attempt at military rule, and an export-heavy economy reeling from unpredictable protectionist moves by the United States, a major trading partner and a security ally.<\/p>\n

Both Lee and Kim pledged change for the country, saying a political system and economic model set up during its rise as a budding democracy and industrial power are no longer fit for purpose.<\/p>\n

Their proposals for investment in innovation and technology often overlapped, but Lee advocated more equity and help for mid- to low-income families while Kim campaigned on giving businesses more freedom from regulations and labour strife.<\/p>\n

Lee is expected to be more conciliatory toward China and North Korea, but has pledged to continue the Yoon-era engagement with Japan.<\/p>\n

Kim branded Lee a “dictator” and his Democratic Party a “monster,” warning if the former human rights lawyer becomes president, nothing will stop them from working together to amend laws simply because they do not like them.<\/p>\n

‘Polarised’<\/p>\n

“The economy has gotten so much worse since December 3, not just for me but I hear that from everybody,” Kim Kwang-ma, 81, said. “And we as a people have become so polarised… I wish we could come together so that Korea can develop again.”<\/p>\n

There were no female candidates running in Tuesday’s election for the first time in 18 years.<\/p>\n

Despite polls showing wide gaps between young men and women, gender equality was not among the key policy issues put forward during this election, a stark contrast from the 2022 vote.<\/p>\n

“One thing I am a bit frustrated about with mainstream candidates whether Lee Jae-myung or other conservative candidates is they lack policy on women or minority groups,” said Kwon Seo-hyun, 18, a university freshman and first-time voter who went out to the streets for anti-Yoon protests following his martial law.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Korea’s liberal party candidate, Lee Jae-myung, was elected president in Tuesday’s snap election, six months to the day after he evaded military cordons to vote against a shock martial law decree imposed by his ousted predecessor. Lee’s victory stands to usher in a political sea change in Asia’s fourth-largest economy, after the backlash against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}