Tools chosen: polymarket_direct polymarket_related kalshi_related claude_news gdelt_news wikipedia code_execution

Sub-questions (Fermi decomposition)

Planner reasoning

This is a leader-exit market on South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, inaugurated June 2025 with a 5-year term ending 2030. Base rate for a sitting president leaving office in a given year absent an active impeachment/health crisis is very low, but South Korea has a recent history of impeachment (Park Geun-hye, Yoon Suk-yeol). Key research: current Polymarket price, whether any impeachment motion, legal jeopardy (his suspended trials), approval ratings, or coalition/National Assembly dynamics create real removal risk.

# Current state Lee Jae-myung remains President of South Korea as of the latest reporting (August 2026), roughly 14 months into his 5-year term. His approval has fallen sharply from record highs but no formal impeachment motion has been introduced in the National Assembly, and his party holds a legislative supermajority that makes forced removal structurally very difficult absent a major precipitating event (e.g., insurrection/treason charge, which alone pierces presidential immunity). # Timeline of key events - 2025-06-04: Lee sworn in as president following Yoon Suk-yeol's removal (confirmed, Wikipedia). - 2025-07 (by July 2025): All five pending criminal trials against Lee suspended under Article 84 presidential immunity (confirmed, Korea Herald). - ~2025 (undated): Constitutional complaint filed challenging legality of trial suspensions; no ruling has overturned them (confirmed, Korea Herald). - 2026-03-07: Approval rating peaks at 65% (confirmed, UPI/Korea Gallup). - 2026-04/05: Approval remains high (~64%) (confirmed, Sedaily). - 2026-06-03: Local elections held; Democratic Party wins 12 of 16 metro mayor/governor races (landslide) but PPP holds Seoul and 3 others (confirmed, Wikipedia/Carnegie). - 2026-06 (mid-June): Approval dips below 50% for first time since taking office, tied to ballot-shortage controversy fallout (confirmed, UPI). - 2026-06-29: Grassroots petition demanding impeachment collects 100,000+ signatures, meets threshold for committee referral; analysts say it is very unlikely to lead to actual impeachment given DPK's Assembly majority (confirmed signature collection; reported assessment, Korea Herald). - 2026-08-03: Approval hits record-low 45.9% (confirmed, UPI). - 2026-08-10: Realmeter poll shows approval falling further to 43.3%, fourth consecutive weekly decline (confirmed, Realmeter via news). - Throughout July–August 2026: Lee active in high-profile foreign/economic diplomacy (Nvidia/OpenAI, Samsung-SK $950B chip deals, Trump naval-shipbuilding request, Mongolia/Argentina/Germany trips) — signals continued normal governance, no incapacity (confirmed, GDELT/Korea Herald). # Event Will Lee Jae-myung cease to be President of South Korea (resignation, removal, impeachment, incapacitation, detention) at any point between market creation and 2026-12-31? # Outcomes to forecast - Yes (Lee is out as president at any point through end-2026) - No (Lee remains president through end-2026) # Kalshi market anchor No direct Kalshi price was retrieved for this specific ticker in the research provided. The closest Kalshi proxy — "Will South Korean President Lee Jae-myung serve their full term?" (KXFULLTERMSKPRES-29, term ends 2030) — trades at 62% YES (full term), down 26 points over 30 days but up 5 points over 7 days, implying ~38% market-priced chance he does NOT serve the full term (a broader, longer-horizon question than this 2026-only market). Polymarket's exact-match market for this question prices YES (out in 2026) at 10.6%, up modestly over 7d/30d (range 6.9–12.9% over 90 days, $245K volume) — this is the best direct anchor available. # Sub-question answers 1. **Polymarket price/history** — Current YES 10.6%; 7d +2.1pp, 30d +1.25pp; 90-day range 6.9–12.9%; $245K total volume (polymarket_direct). 2. **Trial/immunity status** — All five criminal trials against Lee suspended since ~July 2025 under Article 84 immunity (no charge except insurrection/treason applies during tenure); constitutional complaints against the suspension have not succeeded; no verdict can legally remove him before 2026 unless immunity is pierced or overturned (claude_news/Korea Herald). 3. **Impeachment status** — No formal Assembly impeachment motion filed; a citizen petition passed the 100,000-signature threshold for committee referral (June 2026) but analysts and Korea Herald assess it is very unlikely to succeed. Impeachment requires 200/300 votes; PPP/opposition cannot reach this alone given DPK's majority (claude_news, koreaherald.com). 4. **Approval & seats** — Approval fell from a peak 65% (March 2026) to a record-low 43.3% (Aug 10, 2026 Realmeter), driven by ballot-management controversy, housing/economic concerns. DPK won 12/16 metro executive races in June 2026 local elections (landslide but with caveats), retaining legislative dominance (Wikipedia, Carnegie, UPI). 5. **Health/resignation/assassination signals** — No credible reports of health issues or resignation talk as of August 2026 (claude_news). Lee survived an assassination attempt in January 2024 (pre-presidency), but no new threat reporting found (Wikipedia). 6. **Historical base rate** — 2 of 8 democratic-era South Korean presidents (Park Geun-hye, Yoon Suk-yeol) were forcibly removed before completing terms (25%); annualized hazard rate ≈5.3–5.6%/president-year (code_execution analysis). # Key facts (high-confidence, factual) 1. [Wikipedia] Lee inaugurated 2025-06-04; term legally runs to ~2030. 2. [Korea Herald] All 5 criminal cases against Lee suspended under Article 84 immunity since mid-2025. 3. [Korea Herald] Impeachment requires 200/300 Assembly votes; opposition PPP holds well under that threshold alone. 4. [UPI/Realmeter] Approval fell from 65% (Mar 2026) to 43.3% (Aug 2026), a >20pp decline. 5. [Wikipedia] DPK won 12/16 metro executive races in June 2026 local elections, retaining dominant legislative position. # Cross-market signals - Kalshi related: "Serve full term" YES at 62% (implies ~38% risk of not finishing full 5-year term, a longer horizon than this market). - Polymarket direct: 10.6% YES for this exact 2026 question, slowly rising over past month. - Polymarket related: separate "Lee Jae-myung impeached before 2027" market exists (price not captured here) — suggests market differentiates "impeached" from broader "out as president." # Analyst opinions and speculation - Korea Herald/Carnegie: impeachment petition unlikely to succeed given DPK's supermajority; local election results seen as a "check" on Lee's power but not existential threat. - claude_news synthesis: forced removal seen as "structurally very difficult absent a major scandal like insurrection/treason." # Directional lean per outcome - **Yes**: Declining approval (record lows), citizen impeachment petition reaching signature threshold, unresolved constitutional complaints over trial suspension, elevated historical base rate given recent precedent (2 impeachments in 8 years). - **No**: DPK's legislative supermajority blocks impeachment math (200/300 needed); trials remain suspended with no near-term legal path to removal; no health/resignation signals; Lee actively engaged in normal high-profile governance (diplomacy, chip deals) through August 2026; both Kalshi and Polymarket price low probability of removal. # Gaps / unknowns - No direct Kalshi price for the exact ticker was returned (only related "full term" market used as proxy). - No update on the constitutional complaint against trial suspensions' final disposition. - No visibility into Sept–Dec 2026 developments (data ends ~mid-August 2026). # Calibration anchors - Polymarket YES (direct, anchor): 10.6%. - Kalshi proxy (full-term YES, longer horizon): 62% → implies ~38% NOT-full-term, but not directly comparable (2030 horizon vs 2026). - Historical base rate: ~5–6%/year unconditional; analyst-adjusted range 8–12% given recent high-impeachment-frequency era.

1. Both forecasters anchor almost entirely on the Polymarket 10.6% figure and end up clustered just below it (7% and 9%), but neither seriously grapples with why the Kalshi "full term" proxy has dropped 26 points in 30 days — a steep momentum signal that could indicate rising near-term risk perception not fully captured by the calmer Polymarket price. 2. Both note the unresolved constitutional complaint against the trial-suspension mechanism but treat it as a non-event; neither models the tail scenario where a court ruling pierces Article 84 immunity mid-window, which would be a genuine discrete legal path to removal distinct from impeachment math — this is a real gap given "no ruling has overturned them" but also no ruling has affirmed them permanently. 3. Neither forecaster adjusts for the accelerating approval decline trend (four consecutive weekly drops as of Aug 10, 43.3% and falling) as a leading indicator — historically, sustained approval collapse often precedes defections within a ruling party or emboldens legal/media escalation (as happened with Park), so the trend's slope, not just its level, deserves more weight than a passing mention. 4. The base-rate discussion (2 of 8 presidents forcibly removed, ~25%) is cited by both but then heavily discounted to near-single-digit probabilities without fully justifying why 2026 alone (only one year of a 5-year term, with already-visible scandal-adjacent controversy over "ballot-management") should be so much lower than the annualized hazard rate of 5-6%, especially in a "recent high-impeachment-frequency era" the brief itself flags. 5. Neither forecast addresses the ballot-shortage controversy that caused the approval mid-June drop in any depth — if this controversy involves potential electoral/administrative wrongdoing, it could be a seed for future insurrection-adjacent allegations, which the brief flags as the only charge that pierces immunity, and this scenario is underexplored as a tail path to Yes. 6. Both forecasts converge very tightly (7% vs 9%) despite pulling from a wide range of anchors (10.6% Polymarket, ~38% Kalshi proxy, 5-12% historical/analyst range), suggesting insufficient independent exploration of the uncertainty — a wider spread or explicit discussion of why the Kalshi proxy's implied risk is so much higher would strengthen calibration rather than both models simply "shading slightly below" the same single anchor.

8% (70% confidence)

Yes: 8% No: 92%

The exact-match Polymarket anchor at 10.6% is the best available price, and the structural evidence points below it: impeachment requires 200/300 Assembly votes against a DPK supermajority, no formal motion exists, all five criminal trials remain suspended under Article 84 immunity with no ruling piercing it, and Lee is conducting normal high-profile governance with no health or resignation signals. The critique's points about the Kalshi full-term proxy's 26-point drop and the accelerating approval slide are worth some weight, but the proxy covers a 2030 horizon and approval decline alone (43.3%) is far from the crisis conditions that preceded the Park and Yoon removals; Yoon's own removal required a self-inflicted martial-law declaration. The unresolved constitutional complaint and the ballot-shortage controversy are genuine but low-probability tail paths, and any such escalation would likely take longer than the ~4.5 months remaining in the window. Long-shot 'out' markets also typically carry a small upward bias, so I settle modestly below the direct anchor at 8%.

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