South Korea’s opposition chief Lee hints at a presidential candidacy as the campaign begins.

On Wednesday, Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea’s main opposition party, announced he would resign as party head, with anticipation growing that the current populist frontrunner in presidential opinion polls would soon announce his candidacy.

South Korea’s Minister of Labor, Kim Moon-soo, who is among the ruling People Power Party members expressing a desire to run, has also announced his candidacy. A snap presidential election will take place in South Korea on June 3, following the endorsement of former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment related to a martial law declaration made in December.

“I will now begin new work,” Lee, the Democratic Party chief, stated during a leadership meeting broadcast live on his YouTube channel. He neither provided details nor affirmed that he would run for the presidency.

The election begins a contest to choose a new leader who will face the challenge of steering Asia’s fourth-largest economy through a global trade war sparked by extensive tariffs put in place by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The upcoming leader will confront a fierce political conflict intensified by Yoon’s impeachment, wherein he pointed to continuous political blockades from the majority opposition and unfounded assertions that the 2024 parliamentary election suffered from fraud when he announced martial law.

Lee, 61, experienced the narrowest defeat in the nation’s history when he competed against Yoon in the 2022 presidential election. Last year, he guided his liberals to a decisive triumph in a parliamentary election.

In contrast to the Democratic Party, the People Power Party boasts a broad range of announced and possible candidates, such as the labour minister and the mayors of Seoul and Incheon, even though some have not managed to achieve more than single-digit polling percentages.