As polls near, South Korean voters remain unconvinced about front runner Lee Jae-myung

SEOUL – Lee Jae-myung is still the front runner in South Korea’s presidential race, but what once looked like a landslide victory has turned into a much tighter contest.

Just a few weeks ago, the left-leaning opposition candidate appeared almost certain to win, after the chaotic downfall of conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol,

who was impeached

and ousted from office following his failed attempt to impose martial law.

That left Yoon’s party fractured and in disarray.

But latest opinion polls before the final week of campaigning show that Lee’s lead over the ruling party’s candidate Kim Moon-soo has narrowed.

That is an indication that some voters are not really buying Lee’s attempts to shift towards the political centre.

It is also a clear reminder that no matter who wins on June 3, he will face the tough task of leading a deeply fractured nation.

That divide is especially apparent in Daejeon, a high-tech city of 1.5 million people that is home to South Korea’s leading research institutes.

It is also a bellwether region in national politics.

In the 2022 presidential election, voters in the city supported Yoon of the People Power Party (PPP). Just two years later, during parliamentary elections, they flipped in favour of Lee’s Democratic Party.

Now, both Lee and Mr Kim are zeroing in on Daejeon as a must-win battleground.

For Lee, keeping those Democratic Party voters on his side is critical, but it is no easy feat.

“No one can be indifferent to what happened with the martial law and the state of the economy,” said Mr Han Jae-oh, a 23-year-old college student in Daejeon. “But Lee just has too many controversies surrounding his personal life.”

Mr Han said he will vote for a candidate who prioritises tackling the country’s demographic crisis and reforming its drying pension fund.

He believes Mr Kim would be better than Lee at the job.

Polls conducted before the last week of campaigning also show that restoring faith in the political process and fixing the economy are among the top concerns for voters. 

Asia’s fourth-largest economy is a key player in supply chains, providing the world with everything from the latest smartphones and automobiles, to heavyweight ships and cutting-edge chips.

But the aftermath of Yoon’s shock move has pushed the economy back into reverse, just as US President Donald Trump tore up the global trade playbook with

his wave of tariffs

. 

The new leader will need a strategy for dealing with Mr Trump and a plan for future growth.

But for voters in Daejeon, tackling the economy means improving everyday livelihoods and people’s access to affordable housing and rewarding jobs, not just protecting the export sector.

Lee has been leading the presidential race since the get-go while the conservatives squabbled over who should stand for them.

In the end, the rank-and-file membership of the PPP chose right-winger Mr Kim as the party’s candidate, prevailing over the leadership’s efforts to install a more centrist alternative. 

Mr Kim initially did little to distance himself from Yoon’s actions. He avoided any comments that looked like an apology for

Yoon’s martial law decree

and the chaos it triggered.

His detractors labelled him an avatar of the former president. 

But Mr Kim, a former labour activist like Lee, has now apologised and has garnered more traction than expected by toning down his policies in the same way as his main rival.

In fact, many of the two rivals’ policies look very similar: constitutional reform to allow two-term presidencies, a stimulus package of 30 trillion won (S$28 billion) for the economy, fostering growth in the artificial intelligence sector through a 100 trillion won fund, increasing the supply of housing, and enhancing corporate efficiency. 

The difference is that Lee sees the government taking a key role in carrying out his objectives through spending and regulation, while Mr Kim sees deregulation and the private sector as the main policy levers.

There is a wider gap on some other policies. Lee wants to try shortening the working week, closing down coal-fired power stations over time, and speaking with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Mr Kim Moon-soo wants to lower taxation, build more nuclear power plants, and push for Nato-like shared coordination of nuclear resources with the US.

For Ms Han Ju-hui, a 34-year-old former nurse, only Lee can provide a way forward. She swopped her hospital uniform for a blue campaign outfit to back her preferred candidate.

“Nobody believes it, but I pretty much timed the departure from my previous job to do this,” Ms Han said as she walked around one of Daejeon’s many university campuses, canvassing for Lee. 

She believes he is the right person to ensure that the country keeps up with the ever-intensifying global AI race. She also favoured the Democratic Party in the last parliamentary election.

“I was awestruck by his strong determination to get things done when he was governor of Gyeonggi province,” Ms Han said, referring to Lee’s leadership of the region surrounding Seoul. 

But, as Mr Han, the Daejeon student, indicated, Lee is also one of the more polarising figures in the country’s political landscape, with a fervent base of supporters on the left and a large block of opponents in the conservative camp. 

Lee has been clouded by scandals in his personal life and multiple legal troubles surrounding accusations of aiding private land developers, misusing public funds, and infringing election laws in the past.

He has denied any wrongdoing and called the legal proceedings against him politically motivated.

Mr Jang, a 73-year-old who mills spices for restaurants in Daejeon and asked to be identified only by his last name for fear of reprisal, said: “I never really liked Lee Jae-myung. He’s always been surrounded by controversies, you know, the legal cases and all that.

“At the same time, we can’t go with Kim this time. He shouldn’t be the one standing after Yoon made this whole mess.” 

Mr Jang acknowledges that many in Daejeon, like him, have changed party allegiance over the years.

Mr Jang, who voted for Lee in the 2022 election, said people around him have switched their support following the martial law decree.

The botched decree hit his bottom line, too, he said. His daily sales dropped almost a quarter, from around 200,000 won on average to 150,000 won.

“People don’t come out and spend money when politics is not doing well,” he said. “I know the economy isn’t good because my regulars who would come three times a week now only come twice.” 

The Bank of Korea provided an indication of how the picture for the economy has grown bleaker when it almost halved its growth forecast for 2025 to 0.8 per cent, from an earlier forecast just three months ago.

That shows how Mr Trump’s tariffs and political uncertainty are weighing on an economy that already shrank in the first quarter.

Among Mr Kim’s supporters, some remain optimistic that he can still pull off a come-from-behind victory.

Mr Yang Hong-kyu, a 60-year-old lawyer and campaigner for the PPP, said: “I was worried going into this campaign, but it’s not as bad as I thought.” 

He was among dozens of campaign staff who were dancing and chanting under Lee’s banner in Daejeon, a symbolic demonstration that they will not be daunted or overshadowed by the front runner’s lead. 

Mr Yang’s optimism may not be unfounded.

Opinion polls conducted before May 28 showed a high level of volatility in support rate, especially in the central region, with some indicating that more voters there, including Daejeon, favour Mr Kim over Lee. 

Still, the key impediment to Mr Kim’s campaign is the separate candidature of former PPP leader Lee Jun-seok.

Now running on the minor Reform Party ticket, he is likely to play a spoiler role for the conservative vote. In one opinion poll, combined support for him and Mr Kim was larger than Lee Jae-myung’s.

But the 40-year-old Mr Lee Jun-seok, who voted for Yoon’s impeachment, has vowed to stay in the race till the end as he tries to build his credentials as the best-placed leader of the conservatives, to resonate with a wider and younger demographic going forward. 

That leaves Lee Jae-myung in pole position for the June 3 election.

Mr Heo Jin-jae, director of public opinion at Gallup Korea, said Lee appears almost certain to clinch victory unless he makes a mistake serious enough to shake up public sentiment.

Mr Heo has been following South Korea’s presidential elections since 1992. 

Analysts also point out that the Democratic Party’s position in Parliament may also sway the undecided.

Should Lee win, he would be backed by the commanding majority that the party already holds in Parliament. That means he would see few of the hurdles that Yoon faced in the legislative body.

But for Mr Kim, he would face resistance in the National Assembly from day one as a president who lacks a majority. 

“The liberals would become a ruling party that can do whatever it wants without compromise,” Mr Heo said, referring to a potential win that might end up fuelling further political polarisation in the nation.

Voting in a president who will not be reined in by Parliament may be a major concern for many South Koreans still shocked by the martial law debacle.

But the alternative is a candidate from the party Yoon represented, with the likelihood of more gridlock in Parliament. 

For many South Koreans, this election is shaping up to be a case of choosing the least-bad option.

“This will be a historic vote that decides whether we move forward towards the future and become a normal nation again,” Lee Jae-myung said at a rally in Bucheon near Seoul. “Who you like or dislike is a secondary question.” BLOOMBERG