2025 South Korean presidential election

An early presidential election was held in South Korea on 3 June 2025. It was originally set for 3 March 2027, but the election was pushed forward after the impeachment and removal of Yoon Suk Yeol. The date of 3 June was due to the requirement by the country's constitution for an election to be held within 60 days of when the presidency becomes vacant.

Since democratization and the creation of the Sixth Republic, this was the ninth presidential election, the second election after a presidential impeachment, and the first held in a different year than originally scheduled.

Democratic Party nominee and former Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung defeated ruling People Power Party nominee Kim Moon-soo, and Reform Party nominee Lee Jun-seok in a landslide victory. Voter turnout was 79.38%, the highest since the 1997 presidential election.

## Election events

Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung has had legal troubles that may ban him from being elected president. Under the Public Official Elections act, candidates who receive more than 1 million won in fines or any prison sentence are banned from serving as a public official for 5 and 10 years respectively. In March 23, Seoul High Court reversed a decision made sentencing Lee to one year in prison with a two-year probation, allowing him to run for public office again. However, in May 2, a speedy 10-2 judgement from the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision, and sent the case back to Seoul High Court for a retrial. The initial date of retrial was set at May 15, but was later delayed to June 18, which is after the election date.

The two leading conservative candidates former Acting President Han Duck-soo and former Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo are expected to merge their campaigns, but made little progress in doing so. Kim has said that the PPP and its chair has moved to unify campaigns without talking with him. A party spokesperson said that it's likely the party would move to remove Moon-soo of his candidacy if he did not agree to unify with Duck-soo. The PPP confirmed early on May 10 that they would cancel the nomination of Kim, and instead nominate Han at an emergency convention the same day. Later that day, members of the PPP rejected a resolution making Han the party's candidate following an all-party vote, resulting in Kim's nomination being reinstated. Han later apologized for the candidacy dispute and withdrew from the election.

#### Nominee

|<big>Democratic Party Ticket</big>||
| --- | --- |
|***for President***||
|style=width:16em|Leader of the Democratic Party (2022–2025)|

#### Withdrawn candidates

|scope="col" style="width:10em; font-size:120%;"|Kim Dong-yeon|scope="col" style="width:10em; font-size:120%;"|Kim Kyoung-soo|scope="col" style="width:10em; font-size:120%;"|Kim Doo-kwan|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|colspan="3" style="font-size:120%; color:white; background:;"|_<small>Candidates in this section are sorted by date of withdrawal from the primaries</small>_|||||
|Governor of Gyeonggi Province (since 2022)|Governor of South Gyeongsang Province (2018–2021)|Member of the National Assembly (2016–2024)||||
|_Withdrew: April 19_|_Withdrew: April 19_|_Withdrew: April 18_||||

#### Primary results

The 21st Democratic Party presidential primary election was held on 27 April 2025.
|scope="col"|Candidate|scope="col"|Results|scope="col"|Number of votes|scope="col"|Vote rate|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||**623,695**|**89.77%**||||||
||41,307|6.87%||||||
||25,512|3.36%||||||

#### Nominee

||
| --- |
|***for President***|
|Minister of Employment and Labor (2024–2025)|

#### Withdrawn candidates after the primaries

|scope="col" style="width:11.8em; font-size:120%;"|Han Duck-soo|
| --- | --- |
|colspan="3" style="font-size:120%; color:white; background:;"|_<small>Candidates in this section are sorted by date of withdrawal from the primaries</small>_|
|Acting President of South Korea (2024; 2025)||
|_Withdrew: May 10_||

#### Withdrawn candidates during the primaries

|scope="col" style="width:11.8em; font-size:120%;"|Han Dong-hoon|scope="col" style="width:11.8em; font-size:120%;"|Ahn Cheol-soo|scope="col" style="width:11.8em; font-size:120%;"|Hong Joon-pyo|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|colspan="3" style="font-size:120%; color:white; background:;"|_<small>Candidates in this section are sorted by date of withdrawal from the primaries</small>_|||||
|Minister of Justice (2022–2023)|Member of the National Assembly (since 2022)|Mayor of Daegu (2022–2025)||||
|_Withdrew: May 3_|colspan=2|_Withdrew: April 29_||||
|Member of the National Assembly (since 2024)|Mayor of Incheon (since 2022)|Governor of North Gyeongsang Province (since 2018)||||
|colspan=3|_Withdrew: April 22_|||||
|Member of the National Assembly (2020–2024)|Member of the National Assembly (2005–2020)|Mayor of Seoul (since 2021)||||
|_Withdrew: April 22_|_Withdrew: April 13_|_Withdrew: April 12_||||

#### Primary results

|rowspan="2"|Candidate|1st Round: 22 April 2025__|colspan="2"|2nd Round: 29 April 2025|colspan="5"|Final Round: 3 May 2025|||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|style="width: 170px; text-align:left"|**Kim Moon-soo**|style="background:lightgreen;"|_Advanced_|_n/a_|_n/a_|***TBD***|**51.81%**|***TBD***|**61.25%**|**56.53%**|
|style="width: 170px; text-align:left"|Han Dong-hoon|style="background:lightgreen;"|_Advanced_|_n/a_|_n/a_|_TBD_|48.19%|_TBD_|38.75%|43.37%|
|style="width: 170px; text-align:left"|Ahn Cheol-soo|style="background:lightgreen;"|_Advanced_|_n/a_|_n/a_||colspan="5"||||
|style="width: 170px; text-align:left"|Hong Joon-pyo|style="background:lightgreen;"|_Advanced_|_n/a_|_n/a_||colspan="5"||||
|style="width: 170px; text-align:left"|Na Kyung-won|colspan="10"|||||||||
|style="width: 170px; text-align:left"|Yoo Jeong-bok|colspan="10"|||||||||
|style="width: 170px; text-align:left"|Lee Cheol-woo|colspan="10"|||||||||
|style="width: 170px; text-align:left"|Yang Hyang-ja|colspan="10"|||||||||
|scope="row" style="text-align:right;"|_n/a_||||||||||
||100.0|scope="row" style="text-align:right;"|_TBD_||||||||
|colspan="11" style="text-align:left;"|Sources:||||||||||

#### Nominee

|||
| --- | --- |
|***for President***||
|style=width:16em|Member of the National Assembly (since 2024)|

### New Future Democratic Party

Lee Nak-yon hinted at a campaign for president at the National Convention for Constitutional Revision hosted by the New Future Democratic Party. On 30 April, Lee’s campaign advisor announced Lee’s candidacy registration, making his campaign official. However, on May 10, 2025, Lee decided against a run, and did not endorse a candidate.

#### Withdrawn candidates

|scope="col" style="width:11.8em; font-size:120%;"|Lee Nak-yon|
| --- | --- |
|style="font-size:120%; color:white; background:#00CED1;"|_<small>Candidates in this section are sorted by date of withdrawal from the election</small>_|
|Former Prime Minister (2017–2020)||
|_Withdrew: May 10_||

### Rebuilding Korea Party

On 27 April 2025, the Rebuilding Korea Party announced their support for the Democratic Party's Lee Jae-myung for the presidency.

#### Withdrawn candidates

|scope="col" style="width:11.8em; font-size:120%;"|Cho Kuk|
| --- | --- |
|style="font-size:120%; color:white; background:#0070B8;"|_<small>Candidates in this section are sorted by date of withdrawal from the primaries</small>_|
|Member of the National Assembly (2024)||
|_Ineligible_||

### Progressive Party

On 19 April, the Progressive Party selected Kim Jae-yeon as its presidential candidate. However, she withdrew on May 9, 2025 saying that she wanted to stop the PPP, and endorsed Lee Jae-myung.

#### Withdrawn candidates after the primaries

|scope="col" style="width:11.8em; font-size:120%;"|Kim Jae-yeon|
| --- | --- |
|style="font-size:120%; color:white; background:;"|_<small>Candidates in this section are sorted by date of withdrawal from the election</small>_|
|Leader of the Progressive Party (since 2024)||
|_Withdrew: May 9_||

#### Withdrawn candidates during the primaries

|scope="col" style="width:11.8em; font-size:120%;"|Kang Sung-hee|
| --- | --- |
|style="font-size:120%; color:white; background:;"|_<small>Candidates in this section are sorted by date of withdrawal from the primaries</small>_|
|Member of the National Assembly (since 2023)||
|_Withdrew: April 19_||

#### Nominee

|||
| --- | --- |
|***for President***||
|style=width:16em|Leader of the Democratic Labor Party (since 2024)|

#### Declared candidates

|style="width:16em;"||
| --- | --- |
|***for President***||
|Former Acting President (2016–2017)||

#### Withdrawn candidates

- Han Duck-soo, Acting President of South Korea (2024; 2025) and Prime Minister of South Korea (2007–2008; 2022–2025) _(withdrew on 10 May 2025 to run as the People Power Party nominee)_

#### Disqualified candidates

- Jeon Kwang-hoon, President of Christian Council of Korea

## Infobox (election)

- **election name**: 2025 South Korean presidential election
- **type**: presidential
- **ongoing**: no
- **election date**: 3 June 2025
- **registered**: 44,391,871
- **turnout**: 79.38% ( 2.30pp)
- **previous year**: 2022
- **previous election**: 2022 South Korean presidential election
- **next year**: _2030_
- **next election**: 2030 South Korean presidential election
- **country**: South Korea
- **title**: President
- **image1**: Lee Jae-myung's Portrait (2025.6.4) (cropped 2).jpg
- **nominee1**: **Lee Jae-myung**
- **party1**: Democratic Party of Korea
- **popular vote1**: **17,287,513**
- **percentage1**: **49.42%**
- **image2**: Kim Moon-soo (cropped).jpg
- **nominee2**: Kim Moon-soo (politician), Kim Moon-soo
- **party2**: People Power Party (South Korea)
- **popular vote2**: 14,395,639
- **percentage2**: 41.15%
- **image3**: Lee Jun-seok's Portait (2024.11) (cropped).jpg
- **nominee3**: Lee Jun-seok
- **party3**: Reform Party (South Korea), Reform
- **color3**: FFA500
- **popular vote3**: 2,917,523
- **percentage3**: 8.34%
- **image size**: 130x130px
- **before election**: Lee Ju-ho (acting)
- **before party**: Independent (politician)
- **after election**: Lee Jae-myung
- **after party**: Democratic Party (South Korea, 2015)