South Korean presidential election: Which three candidates are attracting attention?

The South Korean presidential election, which will be held on the 3rd of next month, has been in the campaigning stage since the 12th of this month. Candidates from both the ruling and opposition parties have been campaigning around the country, appealing for voters' support every day. The candidate in the spotlight is the leader of the largest left-wing opposition party,
The three are Lee Jae-myung, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea; Kim Moon-soo, former Minister of Employment and Labor of the conservative ruling party People Power Party; and Lee Jun-seok, former chairman of the conservative opposition party Reform New Party.
In the approval ratings of various opinion polls, Lee Jae Myung is in a considerable lead, followed by Kim Moon Soo and Lee Jun Seok.
The current presidential election was held following the impeachment of former President Yoon Seok-yeol.
So far, the person who has been leading the approval ratings as the most suitable person to be the next president is Lee Jae-myung. Lee is from Andong County, North Gyeongsang Province (now
He is 60 years old and is a former member of the Andong City. He grew up in a poor family. After graduating from elementary school, he worked as a boy factory worker while passing the examinations and obtaining middle and high school graduation qualifications. In 1986, he graduated from Chung-Ang University in Korea and became a lawyer.
He then served as mayor of Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, near Seoul, from July 1, 2007 to March 15, 2018, and then served as mayor of the city from July 2018 to October 25, last year.
He served as the governor of Gyeonggi Province. He ran for president in 2022 and fought a fierce battle with Yoon until the end, but lost by a narrow margin of about 240,000 votes.
Lee, who is running for president for the second time, has pledged to promote growth industries such as AI, content and defense.
He emphasized that he would realize an economic superpower by establishing a new economy. On the 12th, the first day of the election campaign, he gave a speech in downtown Seoul, appealing to voters to "restore democracy and revive the economy."
"Why don't you join us on this journey towards a new start and a new path towards hope?" he said. Meanwhile, Lee is facing multiple criminal trials, and attention is focused on how this will affect his election campaign.
Kim Moon-soo of the People Power Party is a 73-year-old former member of Gyeongsangnam-do, a traditional conservative stronghold in the southeast. He served three terms as a member of the National Assembly from 1996 to 2006, and was a member of the Gyeongsang Democratic Party in the suburbs of Seoul.
He served two terms as governor of Gyeonggi Province from 2006 to 2014. He was appointed Minister of Employment and Labor in the Yoon administration. He participated in the labor movement and democratization movement in the 1970s and 1980s. He was the People Power Party's official candidate.
The party executive tried to bring in former Prime Minister Han Deok-soo, who was running as an independent, and to revoke the party's official candidate Kim, who had already been selected, and to focus on Han, but party members voted against him.
Kim was re-elected as the nominee, but it is hard to deny that he was late in getting started due to the recent controversy. Kim has been promoting "freedom of business activity" and has made deregulation, tax reform, and investment reform plans.
He is calling for the creation of jobs through the revitalization of capital. On the 12th, when the official election campaign began, he started his campaign at a traditional market in Seoul, the home of the common people.
Lee Jun-seok, a 40-year-old former member of Seoul City, is running for the conservative opposition party, the Reform Party. In June 2021, he was elected as the People's Democratic Party's Democratic Party leader at the young age of 36 without any prior experience as a member of the National Assembly.
In the 2022 presidential election, he supported Yoon Seok-yeol as party leader, and as Yoon won the presidency, Lee became the leader of the ruling party.
He announced his departure from the party and the formation of the "New Reform Party" in December 2023. He attempted to create a "third pole" that would incorporate those dissatisfied with the two existing major conservative and progressive parties.
Lee ran for president and was elected. He pledged to promote policies for young people and future generations, and to reduce the number of government ministries from 19 to 13, in order to promote inter-ministerial responses.
On the first day of the election campaign, he visited the southwestern Jeolla Province, a major voting base for the Democratic Party of Korea. He emphasized that he would pursue policies aimed at young people and future generations.
He is trying to differentiate himself from the other candidates. The current presidential election is being fought around the three candidates mentioned above, and the news agency Yonhap News Agency has reported that "at this early stage of the election, the three candidates
"In a recently released opinion poll, Lee Jae-myung is leading the other candidates, and Kim Moon-soo, who has a support base of conservative voters, is following behind.
"Although the approval rating of Lee Jun-seok, who calls himself a 'moderate conservative,' is in the single digits, he is becoming more prominent as the People Power Party has revealed its internal conflict over its nominated candidate," the report said.
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