Woo Won-shik is a South Korean politician who served as the speaker of the 22nd National Assembly of South Korea from June 2024 to May 2026. He was a member of the National Assembly for Nowon, Seoul from 2004 to 2008 and returned to office in 2012. He was a member of Democratic Party of Korea prior to his election as speaker in 2024.
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Woo Won-shik is a South Korean lawmaker who served as speaker of the National Assembly from June 2024 until 2026. The most useful way to place this record in context is to start with the institution or movement through which the person could actually exercise influence, rather than treating visibility as equivalent to control. Woo, a veteran progressive lawmaker, was elected speaker in June 2024 at the opening of a National Assembly dominated by the opposition, while the governing People Power Party boycotted the first plenary vote. That baseline is supported by Yonhap News Agency (opens in a new tab), which anchors the chronology and the relevant office, legal proceeding, campaign or movement. The surrounding context matters because political and social outcomes are usually produced by coalitions, institutions and external constraints as well as individual choices. Woo held a farewell press conference in May 2026, marking the end of his speakership; descriptions that call him the current speaker after that point are outdated. A second source, Reuters Connect (opens in a new tab), helps distinguish the durable part of the record from later interpretation or reputation.
The documented record has two especially important strands. First, Woo, a veteran progressive lawmaker, was elected speaker in June 2024 at the opening of a National Assembly dominated by the opposition, while the governing People Power Party boycotted the first plenary vote. Second, His speakership became nationally consequential during the constitutional crisis surrounding President Yoon Suk Yeol’s December 2024 martial-law declaration and the ensuing impeachment process, when parliamentary procedure and access to the chamber carried exceptional importance. Read together, these events identify where Woo Won-shik had direct agency and where the person operated through a larger institution, coalition, court, company, union or movement. Yonhap News Agency (opens in a new tab) supports the first strand, while [Reuters supports the second. That distinction prevents over-attribution: holding a title can create leverage, but it does not mean every outcome during a tenure was personally authored. At the same time, formal limits do not erase responsibility for decisions, testimony, organizing, bargaining or public advocacy that the evidence connects directly to Woo Won-shik.
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