former president Yoon<\/a> Suk Yeol’s impeachment stemming from a December martial law declaration was upheld on April 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n“I will be now starting new work,” Lee, the Democratic Party leader, told a party leadership meeting carried live on his YouTube channel. He did not elaborate and did not confirm he would be standing for the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee, 61, lost by the slimmest margin in the country’s history when he ran against Yoon in the 2022 presidential election. Last year, he led his liberals to a landslide victory in a parliamentary election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike the Democratic Party, the ruling People Power Party has a wide open field of potential candidates including the labour minister and also the mayor of Seoul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim, a firebrand conservative who has supported Yoon and called for his reinstatement, currently leads the field among conservative candidates, although he trails Lee in opinion polls under a two-way scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he would focus on strengthening the security alliance with the United States but also seek a path for the country to potentially pursue nuclear armament by securing the right to reprocess nuclear fuel, which is considered a step toward building atomic weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In response to North Korea’s nuclear threat, I will become a global leader in protecting freedom and human rights by securing nuclear fuel processing capabilities and developing nuclear-powered submarines,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Reuters) SEOUL, April 9 (Reuters) – South Korea’s main opposition party head Lee Jae-myung said on Wednesday he was stepping down as party leader, amid expectations that the current populist front-runner for the presidency in opinion polls would soon declare his run. South Korea’s labour minister, Kim Moon-soon, who has been among a handful of ruling People Power Party members who indicated intentions to run, also declared his candidacy. South Korea will hold a presidential election on June 3, after former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment stemming from a December martial law declaration was upheld on April 4. “I will be now… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46114,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46112\/revisions\/46114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}