SEOUL, Apr 27: South Korea’s main liberal opposition party tapped Sunday its former leader Lee Jae-myung as presidential candidate in the upcoming June 3 vote.

The Democratic Party said Lee has won nearly 90 per cent of the votes cast during the party’s primary that ended Sunday, defeating two competitors.

Lee, a liberal who wants greater economic parity in South Korea and warmer ties with North Korea, has solidified his position as front-runner to succeed recently ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Lee had led the opposition-controlled parliament’s impeachment of Yoon over his imposition of martial law before the Constitutional Court formally dismissed him in early April. Yoon’s ouster prompted a snap election set for June 3 to find a new president, who will be given a full, single five-year term.

Lee, 60, lost the 2022 election to Yoon in the narrowest margin recorded in the country’s presidential elections.

He is the clear favourite to win the election.

In a Gallup Korea poll released Friday, 38 per cent of respondents chose Lee as their preferred new president, while all other aspirants obtained single-digit support ratings. The main conservative People Power Party is to nominate its candidate next weekend, and its four presidential hopefuls competing to win the party ticket won combined 23 per cent of support ratings in the Gallup survey.

Lee, who served as the governor of South Korea’s most populous Gyeonggi province and a mayor of Seongnam city, has long established an image as an anti-establishment figure who can eliminate deep-rooted unfairness, inequality and corruption in South Korea. But his critics view him as a populist who relies on stoking divisions and demonising opponents and worry his rule would likely end up intensifying a domestic division. (AP)