A reversal before the 2022 presidential election and a 2024 impeachment vote
Ahn Cheol-soo withdrew from South Korea's 2022 presidential race on 3 March, only six days before the national election, and endorsed conservative candidate Yoon Suk Yeol. The last-minute decision was significant because Ahn had run as a centrist alternative and had spent February publicly insisting that he would finish the contest. His reversal removed a competing candidate at a moment when Yoon and Lee Jae-myung were narrowly separated in polling. The deal was not a merger of election results after the vote: it was a withdrawal and political endorsement before citizens cast their ballots.
On 13 February 2022 Ahn proposed a unified opposition candidacy, suggesting a public opinion survey to choose the nominee. On 20 February he withdrew that offer, accusing Yoon's People Power Party of failing to engage seriously. Yonhap reported that Ahn's campaign was polling at approximately ten percent while the two principal rivals were around forty percent. Two members of his campaign team had died in a vehicle during campaign activities shortly before that announcement. Ahn paused campaigning for mourning and returned while negotiations remained unresolved. On 24 February he again said the window for a merger had closed.
Despite those repeated statements, Ahn and Yoon announced cooperation on 3 March. Ahn publicly backed Yoon Suk Yeol and abandoned the separate People's Party candidacy. The agreement altered the electoral choices facing voters who had considered his candidacy an alternative to both major political camps. Yoon subsequently defeated Lee Jae-myung in the election of 9 March. The proximity of the result made opposition consolidation politically important, but a claim that Ahn's withdrawal caused the victory would require voter-transfer evidence beyond the announcement of their pact.
The presidency of Moon Jae-in preceded this election. The political relationship did not guarantee agreement with every subsequent action of Yoon's presidency. On 3 December 2024 Yoon briefly declared martial law, prompting a major constitutional confrontation. The National Assembly voted to demand its removal and then considered impeachment. On 7 December most lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party boycotted the impeachment vote, depriving it of the necessary quorum. Ahn was one of just three ruling-party members who remained willing to participate in that first vote. The attempt failed procedurally, even though opposition members supported impeachment. This action placed Ahn in a small dissenting group within the president's own party.
Ahn's stance in December 2024 added an institutional dimension to a political career sometimes summarized through party switches. His early career had included a technology-business background and repeated bids to build a centrist electoral base. By 2022 he was working with the main conservative party, while by December 2024 he opposed sheltering the president from a parliamentary vote during a constitutional crisis. These dated decisions provide better evidence of Ahn's actual political agency than speculation about a permanent ideological alignment or assumptions about the motives of everyone who voted for him.
