With outgoing South Korean President Moon Jae-in limited to a single term by the country’s constitution, voters will elect a new president on Wednesday, March 9. The race has been closely fought between Lee Jae-myung, the candidate from Moon’s progressive Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), and Yoon Suk-yeol, the conservative People Power Party’s (PPP) nominee, with polls unable to identify who truly has the leading edge. Fewer than two years after the DPK won a landslide victory in National Assembly elections, this presidential race has signaled the return of more energetic party competition and will have significant economic, social, political, and diplomatic implications for a major U.S. ally.
Please join the Center for American Progress the day after the election for a discussion of what the results mean for South Korea, its people, and the country’s relationship with its neighbors and the United States.
For a primer of South Korea’s political landscape before the election, please read this new piece by CAP experts Tobias Harris and Haneul Lee.
Panelists:
Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, President and CEO, Korea Economic Institute; former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea
Gi-Wook Shin, Director, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University
Karl Friedhoff, Marshall M. Bouton Fellow for Asia Studies, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Moderator:
Tobias Harris, Senior Fellow for Asia, Center for American Progress