Just a guide to the 2025 presidential election.

South Korea will elect a new president on June 3 to replace Yon Suk Youol, who was removed from office to put the country under six hours in December.

The winner will be charged with the management of the political and economic fall in the course of Ion, which submerged the country in deep turmoil and emphasized deep divisions in society.

The elections are also held against the backdrop of long-standing challenges such as the threat of North Korea and the lowest birth rate in the world.

This is how the East Asian nation of about 52 million people will choose its new leader over the next five years.

Ion was supposed to serve as president until 2027, but his term ended with shame.

He shocked the nation by announcing martial law on December 3, citing threats from anti -state forces and North Korea – but it soon became clear that he had been encouraged by his own political problems.

A week later, he was an impeach from parliament. On April 4, the Constitutional Court upheld its impeachment and removed it constantly, laying the basis for clicking presidential election within 60 days, as required by law.

In the five turbulent months after the military situation of Ion, the country has three executing presidency, with the most recent being Lee Ji-ho, the Minister of Labor, who took the role one month before the election.

Lee replaced Prime Minister Han Duck Su, which he himself was hindered just weeks after he took Yon in acting. Finance Minister Choi Sang-Mock was a functioning president before Khan was restored in March.

Yoon’s military situation stripped the deep political division between Yon’s supporters and his Conservative Party of People (PPPs) and those who support opposition leader Lee Je-Mung and the Liberal Democratic Party.

He also shook public confidence in the economy at a critical moment when US President Donald Trump unleashed his tariffs for trade partners in America, with South Korean goods facing a 25% fee.

The new president will then have the immediate task of dealing with these concerns.

But there are constant challenges, such as relationships with North Korea. Until the beginning of 2025 was relatively unobstructed, the previous year had seen increased tension, as both sides sent balloons and drones carrying propaganda materials across the border.

On a broader scale, the new leader must balance Seoul’s relationship between his largest trading partner, Beijing and his most important ally for security, Washington.

There is also a task of arresting the declining birth rate of the country, which is among the largest in the world.

In 2024, the fertility percentage of the country or the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her life is 0.75. Although he had slightly tossed from the previous year, he remained far below 2.1 needed to maintain the country’s population of 51 million.

The polls were placed by Lee Ji-Mung of the Liberal Democratic Party as a championship among six candidates, followed by Kim Moon-su, the candidate for the Conservative PPP.

Lee, who lost to Yoon from a gloomy razor in 2022, is welcomed by his supporters as a working -class hero. He worked at a factory before becoming a lawyer and a human rights politician. He promised to create a “true Republic of Korea” with jobs and an honest society.

Kim, a former Minister of Labor, is positioned as president of the economy, promising the creation of a business environment and job creation.

The other candidates are Lee June-Seco from the new Reform Party, Koni Young Guk from the democratic Labor Party and two independent-Hwang Kyo-Ho and Song Jin-Ho.

For the first time in 18 years, there is no woman to run for president. The first woman to run for president of the country was Hong Suk-Ja in 1987, but she retired before the vote. Four women for women appeared in the 2012 election.

The elections are scheduled on June 3, and the voting areas will be open from 06:00 local time (22:00 GMT) to 20:00. South Koreans abroad were allowed to vote early from May 20 to 25.

The results are expected to enter after the polls are closed and the winner is likely to be known at the beginning of the next day.

When Yon defeated Lee in 2022, he was declared winner nine o’clock after the vote ends or at 04:40 in the morning after election day.

It was the closest presidential competition in the history of the country, which saw Yon win with 0.73% difference in vote.

The new president will enter immediately, and unlike many of his predecessors, he will not have the advantage of a formal transition from Yoon.

Ion is faced with a judicial trial of an uprising, which stems from his statement of martial law.

In January this year, he became the first sedentary president of South Korea to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut a barbed wire to be arrested. It is retired by holding weeks later.

He was recently charged separately for abuse of power.

Prior to the election, Yown left his party in what they say that analysts are an attempt to strengthen the chances of the standard PPP bearer Kim Moon-su.