The snap election, scheduled for June 3, follows the Constitutional Court of Korea's unanimous decision last week to impeach disgraced former President Yoon Suk Yeol over his botched martial law debacle late last year.
Taking a jab at Lee Jae-myung, former leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Han said, "We must prevent a dangerous person from taking the presidency," warning that such a politician would "sacrifice the country's fate for his own power," backed by "extreme populists who are blindly loyal to him."
Expressing solidarity with those who suffered from Yoon's Dec. 3 declaration of martial law, Han also said, "Leadership belongs to the one who was first to head to the National Assembly to stop it," in a bid to defend democracy.
The prosecutor-turned-politician, now an estranged former close aide of Yoon's, immediately voiced opposition to the declaration and led a group of PPP lawmakers in voting to lift it just hours later — a move that eventually led him to step down from the post of party leader.
Earlier in the day, Lee, widely considered a strong contender, also announced his third run for the presidency, following previous attempts in 2017 and 2022. In a 10-minute video message, he vowed to become "the best tool to serve the great South Korean people."
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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