Former President Park Geun-hye is to be pardoned in the special New Year presidential pardon granted to 3,094 individuals. Former President Lee Myung-bak was not included in the list. Park, 69, has been serving a combined 22-year term since March 2017 for charges including abuse of power and bribery, after she was impeached in the year before. Her immediate predecessor Lee, who is currently s...

Poll shows 1 in 4 voters want switch in candidates as revelations of family misbehavior, party conflict make daily headlines

After politician Shin Ji-ye joined conservative campaign, long-time friend alleges it was part of a personal revenge

Presidential candidates habitually visit front-line military units during campaign

The government will cut credit card processing fees for small merchants to ease their burdens amid the COVID-19 crisis, the ruling Democratic Party said Thursday following its meeting with financial authorities. The commission rate for small merchants with an annual revenue of below 300 million won ($252,550) will be lowered from 0.8 percent to 0.5 percent, according to Rep. Kim Byung-wook of th...

Presidential candidate of ruling party denies involvement, calls for special counsel probe

Lee says he will do what he can as party chairman for presidential election

Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung pledged Wednesday to complete the country's first moon landing project by 2030 if elected in the March presidential poll. The Democratic Party (DP) nominee also said he will establish a new position of deputy prime minister for science, technology and innovation to oversee planning and budget issues in the science industry. The plans, which were...

Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung and his main opposition rival Yoon Suk-yeol are still running neck-and-neck, a survey showed Wednesday, after they apologized for controversies related to their family members. A Realmeter poll of 1,027 people, which was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, put Yoon ahead with 40.1 percent against Lee's 37 percent. The gap was within the margin of er...

Shin ji-ye, a 31-year-old feminist with liberal political inclinations, made headlines Monday as she crossed party lines and joined the campaign of Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential nominee of the conservative People Power Party. The young politician ran as a Seoul mayor candidate for Green Party Korea in 2018, finishing fourth in the race with over 80,000 votes. Her campaign gained support from f...

The main opposition People Power Party’s chairman on Tuesday said he will resign from the election committee, following the latest spat with a party lawmaker that again highlighted the young leader’s struggle to take command. People Power Party Chairman Lee Jun-seok announced the intent to resign from the committee following an argument with the election committee campaign’s communication chief ...

The chief of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) said Tuesday he will quit all his positions in the party's presidential campaign committee following a dispute with a senior member of the committee. Lee Jun-seok announced his departure at a press briefing at the National Assembly after Rep. Cho Su-jin, the PPP campaign's communications chief, disobeyed his order and said she would liste...

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum on Tuesday reiterated his opposition to a proposal from ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung to temporarily postpone heavy taxation on owners of multiple homes, saying it will bring down people's trust in government policies. Lee has been calling for the government to delay imposing a heavy capital gains tax on owners of multiple homes when they sell thei...

President Moon Jae-in called on the government Tuesday to prepare for the scenario of the omicron variant becoming the dominant version of COVID-19 in the country while making sure to reinforce the country's medical capacity. Moon made the remarks at a Cabinet meeting held after the country reported 49 new omicron cases, bringing the accumulated total to 227. South Korea's daily COVID-19 cases ...

Opposition parties urge Moon to apologize for continued scandals of his aides