Following the Constitutional Court’s historical verdict to remove then-South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is now on trial for committing “insurrection” through his illegitimate martial law declaration, a snap presidential election was scheduled for June 3. The political parties, except the New Reform Party, are scheduled to field their presidential candidates in the coming weeks.
According to the polls released in recent days, Lee Jae-myung, the former leader of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), will likely be the next president of South Korea. Lee was also the DP’s candidate in the 2022 presidential election, when he was defeated by Yoon by just 0.7 percentage points.
Lee’s approval ratings far outpace any of the candidates likely to secure the nomination within the People Power Party (PPP), meaning whoever wins the primary election will not be able to block Lee from winning a landslide victory in the upcoming election.
In this context, the preliminary presidential candidates with the PPP have publicly offered to form a so-called “anti-Lee” coalition with other sympathetic parties. The idea is to field a unified candidate who can beat Lee in the election. The calls were made by Hong Joon-pyo, a former mayor of Daegu, and former Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo, the top two hopefuls seeking the PPP’s nomination on May 3.
Other PPP preliminary candidates also expressed sympathy for this suggestion, bringing up the results of the 2017 presidential election when Hong was defeated by the DP’s Moon Jae-in by 17 points. Notably, Ahn Cheol-soo – a veteran lawmaker currently with the PPP, who has also announced he is seeking to punch his ticket to the presidential race – ran for the 2017 presidential election as an opposition candidate and earned 21.4 percent of the vote. From that experience – and from the 2022 election, when Ahn’s decision to withdraw his candidacy and join the PPP probably clinched Yoon’s victory – conservatives inferred that fielding a unified conservative candidate is a key precondition to win the presidency. (But this analysis misses that in 2017, Ahn was considered closer to the Democratic Party side, so it’s debatable how much his withdrawal from the race would have helped Hong.)
This anti-Lee coalition, which is also called the “anti-Lee Big Tent,” is not only approaching the candidates within the PPP but also other parties. However, one of the most likely members of such a coalition has already rejected it. Lee Jun-seok, a former leader of the PPP who is the first official presidential candidate for his New Reform Party (NRP), opposed the idea of a unified candidate, affirming his will to run in the election.
If Lee Jun-seok shows his potential by securing approval ratings around 10 percent in the polls, he will face pressure to step down due to the recent history of third-party candidates playing “spoiler.”
While Ahn joined forces with Yoon in 2022, the liberal camp was not able to do the same. Shim Sang-jeong, a retired liberal icon who ran for the presidential election multiple times, did not end her campaign even though her approval rating showed she had no chance of winning. She wound up earning just 2.37 percent of votes – enough to help Yoon to become the president in South Korea’s most tightly fought presidential race. It was a tragedy that shocked the liberal camp, and Shim and her Justice Party paid a political price for this outcome: Shim was defeated by the DP candidate in the 2024 general election and her party failed to secure a single seat in the National Assembly.
Another possible member of an anti-Lee Jae-myung coalition would be former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, who worked for the Moon Jae-in government and spent his entire political career within the DP before leaving the party in 2024. His anti-Lee sentiment is no secret – he has publicly said there are more people who dislike the DP leader than those like him.
The main goal of this bold initiative is to create a one-on-one battle that would give a single candidate the chance to confront Lee in the election. In this scenario, a unified “conservative” candidate may have more possibility of being elected.
However, the PPP’s strategy avoids the elephant in the room: The upcoming snap election was scheduled due to Yoon’s illegitimate attempt to control the country through martial law, and most of the PPP preliminary candidates continue to defend Yoon. Some of them publicly disagreed with the unanimous verdict of the Constitutional Court upholding Yoon’s impeachment. In eight years, two consecutive conservative presidents have been removed from office, raising serious questions in many voters’ mind over whether the conservative party is fit to govern. But the PPP has showed no regret over the twin catastrophes. Instead, it is concentrated on framing Lee Jae-myung as a dangerous political figure who will destroy the country.
The protests calling for impeaching Yoon are over but the public still demands that the investigation agencies arrest and prosecute everyone involved in Yoon’s martial law in order to uphold South Korea’s status as a leading democratic and middle-power country in Asia. It may take years to complete the trials and investigations over those who were involved in the martial law disaster – including, but not limited to, Yoon himself.
It is shameful that the PPP has not stopped justifying Yoon’s actions even after he was removed from office for grave violations of the constitution. Rather, the party has floated the idea of forming a big tent coalition to block the opposition leader from becoming president.
In that context, any anti-Lee coalition will strengthen Lee’s power and will make his supporters more united. And the People Power Party will face the public’s growing demands to disband.