Who will be South Korea’s next president?

Lee Jae-myung is making his second run at South Korea’s presidency. Mr Lee, 61, narrowly lost to Mr Yoon in 2022; this time he entered the race a clear front-runner. Mr Lee grew up in a slum and dropped out of school to work in factories, before making a remarkable transformation to become a human-rights lawyer and eventually governor of Gyeonggi province. He established a reputation as a progressive policymaker with populist flair, calling for the introduction of a universal basic income and critiquing Mr Yoon’s foreign policy for alienating China and drawing too close to America and Japan. More recently he has sought to cast himself as a pragmatist. He promised more support for households and a more vibrant private sector; and he has emphasised the importance of South Korea’s alliance with America and signalled openness to closer co-operation with Japan. Nonetheless, he remains a divisive figure. He survived an assassination attempt last year and wore a bulletproof vest while delivering the speech to launch his campaign.

Kim Moon-soo also began his professional life in South Korea’s labour movement. He was imprisoned and tortured for his activism under the country’s military dictatorship in the 1980s. But his politics shifted rightward following South Korea’s democratisation and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Mr Kim has said left him disillusioned with his earlier revolutionary views. He joined a conservative party in the 1990s, serving as a lawmaker and later as governor (also of Gyeonggi province). A failed presidential bid in 2012 left him in the political wilderness until Mr Yoon tapped him for a ministerial post. Mr Kim, 73, emerged as a staunch supporter of the former president following the declaration of martial law. He has promised to push for deregulation, tax cuts, stronger armed forces and a closer alliance with America.