Lee Jae-myung, the front-running candidate in South Korea’s special presidential election, may have been disqualified by a ruling from the Supreme Court on Thursday.
Lee, the leader of the left-wing Democratic Party of Korea (DP), has been leading in the polls ever since President Yoon Suk-yeol of the conservative People Power Party (PPP) was impeached in December. Yoon was impeached for declaring martial law in December, ostensibly to combat “subversive anti-state elements.”
South Korea’s Constitutional Court formally removed Yoon from office on April 4, paving the way for a special election to replace him on June 3. The interim president who managed the office for most of the time since Yoon’s impeachment, Han Duck-soo, resigned his position on Thursday and is expected to enter the race as a candidate.
“I have two paths ahead of me. One is completing the heavy responsibility that I handle now. The other is putting down that responsibility and taking a heavier responsibility. I’ve finally determined to put down my post to do what I can and what I have to help overcome the crises facing us,” Han said on Thursday, strongly suggesting he has an eye on the upcoming election.
Han’s resignation would have bumped Minister of Economy and Finance Choi Sang-mok into the acting presidential hot seat — except the opposition immediately filed a motion to impeach Choi, and he resigned from his office within a matter of hours.
PPP lawmakers stormed out of the assembly hall to protest the impeachment vote against Choi, who has already been acting president once before, when the opposition impeached Han Duck-soo in December. The Supreme Court overturned that impeachment and reinstalled Han as the acting president in March.
Lee Jae-myung, who ran for president in 2022 and narrowly lost to Yoon, announced his intention to run again on April 10. He said income inequality and economic growth would be his top priorities.
“Our economy is in dire straits. The government’s role is important, but for the past three years, the government has neglected the economy,” he said when declaring his candidacy.
The DP formally nominated Lee as its candidate on Tuesday, giving him almost 90% of its votes. According to the most recent polls he is running far ahead of potential challenges with 38% support from the public. No other candidate is polling above 10% at the moment, although the conservative vote may coalesce around a single candidate when the PPP nominates its candidate next weekend.
“Now, the people and our party colleagues gave me an opportunity to win back the presidency and build a new, real Republic of Korea. Thank you! I’ll humbly uphold that ardent,” Lee said in his acceptance speech.
Unfortunately for Lee, the Supreme Court might have bounced him out of the race on Thursday by overturning a previous ruling that cleared him of charges that he made “false statements” during his 2022 race against Yoon.
Lee is under investigation for several charges that would seem fairly serious, including corruption allegations linked to a real-estate scandal from his days as governor of Gyeonggi province, but the election law case was always seen as the one that might sink him, because he has already been found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison for it.
Lee was accused of making false statements on two occasions in 2021. In the first instance, he claimed he was coerced by the national Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport into rezoning some property to benefit a major development project while he was mayor of the city of Seongnam.
Lee’s critics believe he made the controversial rezoning decision for his own personal financial benefit. The Land Ministry said Lee’s story of coercion was false, and the ministry’s position would ultimately be accepted by the Supreme Court.
The other allegedly false statement was made in December 2021, when Lee denied his links to the massive Seongnam real estate scandal. The court found Lee’s denials were demonstrably false and intended to manipulate voters.
The Seoul Central District Court found Lee guilty on both charges of making false statements in November 2024 and sentenced him to a year in prison. The sentence was suspended, but under South Korean law, the verdict was enough to disqualify him from running for office for at least five years.
The Seoul High Court overturned the Central District Court’s ruling in March, clearing the way for Lee to run in the June presidential election. Prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court, and on Thursday they won their case, as the Supreme Court overturned the High Court’s ruling.
Chief Justice Jo Hee-de said on Thursday that Lee’s statements in October and December 2021 were “judged to be false statements on matters important enough to ruin voters’ accurate judgement on the defendant’s eligibility for public office.”
Lee might have one more chance to stay in the race, as the Supreme Court tossed his case back down to the appellate court level for a new ruling. The Supreme Court moved very quickly to hear Lee’s case, but the appeals court could take months before issuing a new ruling.
Ironically, the four serious corruption cases against Lee — the very charges he was convicted of making false statements about in 2021 — probably will not reach the courts until long after the June election, so they are not seen as serious impediments to his run.
There was a good deal of confusion among politicians, commentators, and legal experts in South Korea on Thursday over whether Lee can continue running for president after the Supreme Court ruling.
Political consultant Park Sung-min told Nikkei Asia on Thursday that Lee can legally continue his campaign, and he probably will, but he probably shouldn’t. If the appeals court moves as quickly as the Supreme Court did, a ruling could be dropped right in the middle of the campaign that forces Lee to suspend his candidacy.
“Lee will face pressure to resign as the court allows time for a change of candidate, but I think the Democratic Party will go ahead with him,” Park predicted.
The DP held an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss Lee’s fate, and decided it would stick with him. The party criticized the Supreme Court ruling and said it has no plans to name an alternative candidate.
Political analyst Rhee Jong-hoon told Reuters that whatever the DP might be saying in public, it will almost certainly discuss a “Plan B” behind closed doors, possibly including an outreach to minor parties to form a coalition around a different candidate.
“The appeals court will decide whether to disqualify him to run for office or not, but the Supreme Court in effect found him guilty,” noted Myongji University political science professor Shin Yul. “Moderate voters, 10% of the total, will be swayed by this news.”
Lee himself seemingly argued that the election should be the ultimate verdict on his actions, rendered by the South Korean people.
“It was a totally different direction of ruling from what I thought,” he said of the Supreme Court decision. “Law is a consensus of people, and people’s will matters the most.”
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