Former presidents wade into local election campaign

With the 9th nationwide local elections set for Wednesday, every living former and current president has been drawn into the campaign. President Lee Jae Myung spent both days of the early voting period urging turnout, while former President Moon Jae-in used his early ballot to call for a verdict against what he described as insurrection forces. On the conservative side, former presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye hit the campaign trail for People Power Party candidates. Former President Yoon Suk Yeol, held at a detention center, has issued no public statement.

With two days to go before the June 3 local elections, the contest between the ruling and opposition parties has reached a peak, with former and current presidents exerting influence — directly and indirectly — on the race. The early campaign centered on assessments of the Lee Jae Myung government's first year and calls to punish forces linked to the Dec. 3 emergency martial law declaration. But friction over candidate nominations within the ruling party, and People Power Party candidates distancing themselves from what critics have dubbed "Yoon Again," has turned battlegrounds across the country more competitive.

Amid that backdrop, former President Lee Myung-bak visited a church in Busan on May 31 before taking the microphone at a street rally in Haeundae-gu. Stumping for Park Heong-joon — the Busan mayoral candidate who served as a Cheong Wa Dae aide during the Lee administration — the former president appealed to voters to "choose candidate Park, a mayor who gets things done and will see his work through to the end." It was the first time Lee has campaigned in a local election.

Former President Park Geun-hye mounted a sweeping tour on behalf of People Power Party candidates, traveling from Daegu through the Chungcheong provinces, Busan, Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province and Gangwon Province in a stretch of activity that resembled the role of a campaign chair. On May 31 she visited Daegu's Seomun Market — considered a barometer of conservative public sentiment — for the first time in eight days. Referring to Choo Kyung-ho, the PPP candidate for Daegu mayor, she told the crowd: "If you give our candidate Choo your overwhelming support, he will revive Daegu's economy and repay you for it."

On the progressive side, former President Moon Jae-in cast his early ballot in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province, where he lives, on May 29 and called for the local elections to deliver a clear judgment against insurrection forces. "I hope this local election becomes one that firmly punishes the insurrection forces and changes the political landscape in the Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang region, including Yangsan where I live," he said.

President Lee Jae Myung, meanwhile, urged voters to go to the polls for a second consecutive day. Having cast his own early ballot on the first day of voting, he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on May 31: "In a democratic republic, a sovereign citizen's silence and abstention give an opportunity to those who deceive the people, abuse power for private gain, and ruin the lives of ordinary citizens and their families." He added: "If any politician or political group finds those words uncomfortable, they are precisely the entrenched interests that sovereign citizens must overcome through their vote."

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who received a life sentence in his first-trial verdict on insurrection charges, has made no public statement. Held at the Seoul Detention Center as an unsentenced detainee pending a final ruling, he is believed to have voted by absentee ballot from the facility in late May.