On June 3, a snap presidential election was held in South Korea. The election was originally scheduled for March 3, 2027, but was called earlier after the former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was impeached on April 4. The winner of the election was the former leader of the Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, with 49 percent of the vote against 41 percent for his opponent Kim Moon-soo from the People Power Party (PPP). The election was held exactly six months after Yoon’s failed coup attempt on December 3, 2024, and can be described as a vote of no confidence in the former president. However, the new president does not represent any significant change for the working class, but rather a continuation of austerity and militarism.
According to the constitution, a new election must be called within 60 days of a president being removed from office. Yoon had already been suspended as president since December 14 following a vote in the National Assembly, with 204 votes in favor and 85 against, out of 300 in total. A first attempt to suspend him on December 7 failed when Yoon’s own party boycotted the vote, which meant that the required two-thirds majority could not be reached. However, in order to be removed from office, a decision by the Constitutional Court is required.
On April 4, the Constitutional Court unanimously decided to officially remove Yoon as president. The reason was the coup attempt Yoon tried to carry out on December 3, 2024, by declaring a state of emergency and martial law, which was stopped after just a few hours thanks to tens of thousands of people taking to the streets in protest. Yoon had ordered the military to arrest political leaders of the Democratic Party and his own party PPP, as well as trade union leaders and Election Commission officials, but these plans were never realized.
The new president, Lee, from the liberal Democratic Party, was one of the members who tried to enter the National Assembly during the coup attempt and was seen as a stable, democratic alternative to Yoon’s desperate protectionism. Lee has called for peace talks with North Korea and, unlike Yoon, is more open to continued trade with South Korea’s largest trade partner, China. However, Lee’s victory is not a break with the overall political trend. In his victory speech, he emphasized the need for stronger ties with the US, the only country with which South Korea has a security alliance, and a continuation of the trilateral cooperation between the US, South Korea, and Japan that was initiated by Yoon under pressure from Washington. With regards to Trump, he told the New York Times: “I will crawl between his legs if necessary, and if that’s what I have to do for my people. But I am not a pushover, either. South Korea also has quite a few cards to play in give-and-take negotiations.”
It is clear that Yoon tried to neutralize the threat by attempting to imprison his critics in advance, but popular resistance, combined with a state apparatus unprepared to carry out the coup at such short notice, prevented the development of an increasingly authoritarian and repressive regime. Before the state of emergency was declared, the largest independent trade union confederation, the KCTU, had been preparing for a general strike in early December, with Yoon’s resignation as its main demand.
However, the threat of a general strike was never realized, and the strikes that have been held at regular intervals during the spring can be described more accurately as demonstrations, rather than the system-threatening work stoppages and strikes that would have been necessary to continue the struggle against the government and, by extension, the entire capitalist system. While the immediate threat of a coup has been blocked, the workers movement and the left cannot afford to have illusions in Lee or his party to hold back the right.
