Today, June 3, the main round of the presidential elections is taking place in South Korea. Former South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol was removed from office in December 2024 and is currently under investigation in a case involving an uprising against the state. Who is currently running for the presidential seat in this remote Asian country and how the election results may affect Ukraine - the UNN correspondent investigated.
Presidential elections in South Korea
In December 2024, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol declared martial law in the country and tried to bring the army to the streets, arguing that it was necessary to fight the threat from North Korea. This decision was not supported by the South Korean Parliament - a resolution to lift martial law was adopted by 190 votes out of three hundred. Now the former president will face trial for his actions.
"The time of coups in South Korea has already passed. Starting from the fall of the Lee Seung-man regime and until the 90s, it lasted when the South Korean military had a significant influence on politics. Now South Korea has still become a democracy. As we can see from the situation when the president tried to introduce martial law, the institutions in South Korea work and are able to resist such challenges," - explained political scientist Andriy Zolotaryov.
On May 29, early voting in the presidential elections started in South Korea. The main one will take place today, June 3. It is known that six candidates are competing for the presidency.
According to polls, the top three leaders look like this:
- Lee Jae-myung, the candidate from the Liberal Democratic Party, leads with 49.2% of the vote;
- Kim Moon-soo from the conservative People's Power Party has the support of 36.8%;
- Lee Joon-seok from the New Reformist Party came in third with 10.3% of popular support.
Early voting for president has begun in South Korea29.05.25, 09:55 • [views_2923]
Elections in South Korea and Ukraine
Systemically, South Korea's position is unlikely to change much. It is with Ukraine, but only helps with humanitarian aid. Despite the political differences between the presidential candidates, I do not think that anything will change much in South Korea in terms of the geopolitical vector
At the same time, the political scientist added that, in general, South Korea will continue to support Ukraine. Perhaps even the new leader of the state will take the example of Japan and help Ukraine financially.
"South Korea will continue to support. Perhaps, like Japan, it will provide financial assistance to Ukraine. But as for military assistance, as for weapons, that's it," - Zolotaryov emphasized.
Andriy Zolotaryov's skepticism is shared by another political scientist, Taras Zahorodniy. Emphasizing the opinion that South Korea is a promising partner for our country, Zahorodniy expressed doubt that the new president of this country will pay much attention to such a distant state for him as Ukraine.
They don't work that far. We must understand that South Korea is a promising partner primarily in terms of joint arms production. But whether they will do it is a big question. There are many factors that we do not see from the outside, because Asia itself is quite specific. In particular, they see that there are currently only three countries with experience in modern warfare - Ukraine, Russia and North Korea
Promising partner of Ukraine
At the same time, experts agree that partnership with South Korea is very promising for Ukraine and our country should intensify its efforts in this direction.
"If there was a prospect of forces coming to power that would take a more pro-Ukrainian position, then there is a lot of interesting things in South Korea in terms of electronics, weapons, and equipment for the military-industrial complex," - Andriy Zolotaryov noted.
Taras Zahorodniy drew attention to the fact that cooperation with Ukraine can also be useful for South Korea itself. Especially now, when North Korean soldiers are fighting against Ukraine in a real war, and thanks to Russia they are modernizing their military-industrial complex and have trained soldiers.
Seoul sees that North Korea is actively modernizing its defense industry at the expense of the Russians. There are trained soldiers. That is, the dangers for South Korea are growing more. So you need to enter into cooperation with them. The question is about exporting our weapons, because you need to give something to build relationships. And we need to establish this contact, because South Korea is promising in terms of production and cooperation after the war
As a result, Taras Zahorodniy expressed the opinion that the results of the presidential elections in South Korea will not greatly affect the attitude of this state to Ukraine. But this is not a bad thing, because Ukraine has someone to develop cooperation with, namely with countries with which it shares risks.
"I don't think anything will change in them after the elections in terms of their attitude to Ukraine. But we already have someone to work with - Norway, Sweden, Finland - those countries with which we share risks. And does Ukraine share risks with South Korea? It does not share, because they are too far from each other. China influences Korea, there is a pro-Chinese party there. So I don't expect big breakthroughs," - Zahorodniy summed up.