{"id":294854,"date":"2025-05-01T09:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T09:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/south-koreas-acting-president-han-duck-soo-resigns\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T09:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T09:41:07","slug":"south-koreas-acting-president-han-duck-soo-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/south-koreas-acting-president-han-duck-soo-resigns\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea\u2019s Acting President Han Duck-Soo Resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/05\/01\/multimedia\/01int-skorea-politics-mkwg\/01int-skorea-politics-mkwg-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"South Korea\u2019s Acting President Han Duck-Soo Resigns\" title=\"South Korea\u2019s Acting President Han Duck-Soo Resigns\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">South Korea\u2019s acting president, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, stepped down on Thursday, a sign that he plans to run to inhabit the role permanently in the June 3 presidential election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Han has indicated for weeks that he was mulling over whether to run for the June election, which was called after the impeachment and ouster of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who had appointed Mr. Han as the No. 2 official in his administration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Han\u2019s resignation came shortly after the country\u2019s Supreme Court made a ruling that could jeopardize the presidential bid of Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the country\u2019s majority Democratic Party who polls show is the current front-runner to win the election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That ruling threatens to add uncertainty to an election that South Koreans hope will bring an end to months of political turmoil in the country since Mr. Yoon declared martial law late last year, a short-lived episode that led to him being removed from office. Mr. Han replaced Mr. Yoon for a while but then was impeached himself, before being restored as acting president by the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI have decided to step down to do what I can do and what I should to help overcome the crisis our nation faces,\u201d Mr. Han said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Han stopped short of saying he would run for president. But his statement on Thursday was regarded by South Korean news media and political circles as a de facto declaration of presidential ambition. Mr. Han was expected to call a news conference later this week to make his presidential bid official, local news media reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Earlier Thursday, the country\u2019s Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling that had acquitted Mr. Lee of election-law violations, returning the case for retrial. The Supreme Court said in its ruling that it considered Mr. Lee guilty, but the case against Mr. Lee will not be over until the lower court rules again and the Supreme Court reviews that ruling as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lee\u2019s ability to run for president depends on when the lower court will rule again and what type of penalty he will get should the court find him guilty this time. By law, Mr. Lee will be barred from running in elections for five years if he receives a penalty heftier than a 1 million won ($700) fine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It was not clear when the lower court will start deliberating the case again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Supreme Court\u2019s ruling on Thursday cast a cloud over Mr. Lee\u2019s presidential ambition by enabling his political enemies to raise questions about his qualifications to lead the nation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lee was elected his party\u2019s presidential candidate with overwhelming support on Sunday. He won nearly 90 percent of the votes cast during his party\u2019s primary race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lee has been the front-runner by a large margin in public opinion surveys in recent weeks that asked South Koreans who they favored as president.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some politicians affiliated with the People Power Party have been urging Mr. Han to run for president. The party, the country\u2019s second-largest, will select its candidate on Saturday, and that person and Mr. Han may have to negotiate to decide who should represent the party in the election. Currently, Mr. Han does not belong to a party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Following Mr. Han\u2019s resignation, Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, the next in line in the government hierarchy, takes over as acting president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/01\/world\/asia\/south-korea-president-resigns.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Korea\u2019s acting president, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, stepped down on Thursday, a sign that he plans to run to inhabit the role permanently in the June 3 presidential election. Mr. Han has indicated for weeks that he was mulling over whether to run for the June election, which was called after the impeachment and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/05\/01\/multimedia\/01int-skorea-politics-mkwg\/01int-skorea-politics-mkwg-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17060,155970,229309,67,2518,204089,17318,210455,210456,137131,2627,6952,6967,1512,163231],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294856,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294854\/revisions\/294856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}