Front-runner Lee Jae-myung wins party primary for South Korea election

South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party of Korea on Sunday named Lee Jae-myung, the party’s ex-leader, as its candidate for the snap presidential election slated for June 3.

Lee has been leading opinion polls for weeks with a double-digit gap over contestants from the conservative People Power Party, which will name its candidate on May 3.

Lee led the Democratic Party to a landslide victory in a parliamentary election in 2024 and had been widely expected to win the primary election, after he easily defeated two other candidates from his party in regional primaries.

The 61-year-old lawyer-turned-politician lost the last presidential election in 2022 by the slimmest margin in South Korea’s democratic history.

That election was won by Yoon Suk-yeol, who was impeached by the Constitutional Court earlier this month over his short-lived imposition of martial law.

Lee was among the lawmakers who rushed to the National Assembly on the night of Yoon’s December 3 martial law declaration to ensure parliament voted down the military order.