Who is Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s new president?

Earlier than the occasions of three December 2024, South Korea’s new president Lee Jae–myung’s path to energy was plagued by obstacles.

Ongoing authorized circumstances, investigations for corruption and allegations of abusing energy seemed set to derail the previous opposition chief’s second presidential bid.

Then a constitutional disaster modified every part.

On that evening, former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s abortive try to invoke martial regulation set in movement a collection of occasions that cleared the trail for Lee.

Precisely six months later, South Koreans have handed a win to the liberal Democratic Celebration candidate who labored his means up from a teenage factory-worker to the nation’s strongest workplace.

Lee had been projected to win within the run as much as the election, and his last hurdle disappeared after the ruling social gathering’s candidate conceded within the early hours of the morning after election day.

A rags-to-riches origin story mixed with a bullish political type has made Lee right into a divisive determine in South Korea.

“Lee Jae-myung’s life has been filled with ups and downs, and he typically takes actions that stir controversy,” Dr Lee Jun-han, professor of political science and worldwide research at Incheon Nationwide College, informed the BBC.

These actions sometimes included makes an attempt at progressive reform – reminiscent of a pledge, made throughout his 2022 presidential marketing campaign, to implement common fundamental revenue scheme – which challenged the prevailing energy construction and establishment in South Korea.

“Due to this, some individuals strongly assist him, whereas others mistrust or dislike him,” Dr Lee stated. “He’s a extremely controversial and unconventional determine – very a lot an outsider who has made a reputation for himself in a means that does not match conventional Democratic Celebration norms.”

However on this marketing campaign, he has moved nearer to the centre, specializing in huge enterprise and emphasising the significance of ties with the US, forward of commerce negotiations with President Donand Trump.

In a latest memoir, Lee described his childhood as “depressing”.

Born in 1963 in a mountain village in Andong, Gyeongbuk Province, he was the fifth of 5 sons and two daughters, and – as a result of his household’s troublesome circumstances – skipped center faculty to illegally enter the workforce.

As a younger manufacturing unit employee, Lee suffered an industrial accident the place his fingers received caught in a manufacturing unit energy belt, and on the age of 13 suffered a everlasting damage to his arm after his wrist was crushed by a press machine.

Lee later utilized for and was allowed to take a seat entrance exams for highschool and college, passing in 1978 and 1980 respectively. He went on to check regulation with a full scholarship, and handed the Bar Examination in 1986.

In 1992, he married his spouse Kim Hye-kyung, with whom he has two youngsters.

He labored as a human rights lawyer for nearly 20 years earlier than coming into politics in 2005, becoming a member of the social-liberal Uri Celebration, a predecessor of the Democratic Celebration of Korea and the ruling social gathering on the time.

Whereas his poor upbringing has drawn scorn from members of South Korea’s higher class, Lee’s success in constructing his political profession from the bottom up has earned him assist from working-class voters and people who really feel disenfranchised by the political elite.

He was elected mayor of Seongnam in 2010, rolling out a collection of free welfare insurance policies throughout his tenure, and in 2018 turned governor of the broader Gyeonggi Province.

Lee would go on to obtain approval for his response to the Covid-19 pandemic, throughout which he clashed with the central authorities as a result of his insistence on offering common aid grants for all residents of the province.

It was additionally throughout this time that Lee turned the Democratic Celebration’s last presidential candidate for the primary time in October 2021 – shedding by 0.76 proportion factors. Lower than a 12 months later, in August 2022, he was elected because the social gathering’s chief.

From that time on, Dr Lee says, Lee dialled again on the controversial, fire-and-brimstone strategy for which he had turn into infamous – opting as a substitute to play it protected and maintain a low profile.

“After [Lee’s] time period as a governor, his reformist picture pale considerably as he centered extra on his presidential ambitions,” he stated. “Nonetheless, on sure points – like addressing previous wrongs [during the Japanese colonial era], welfare and corruption – he has constructed a loyal and passionate assist base by taking a agency and uncompromising stance.”

This uncompromising angle has its detractors, with many members and supporters of the ruling Individuals Energy Celebration (PPP) viewing Lee as aggressive and abrasive in his strategy.

Lee’s political profession has additionally been marred by a collection of scandals – together with a drink driving incident in 2004, disputes with kinfolk within the late 2010s and allegations of an extramarital affair that emerged in 2018.

Whereas in different elements of the world voters have proven forgiveness and even assist for controversial politicians, in South Korea – a rustic that’s nonetheless comparatively conservative in what it expects of public figures – such scandals haven’t performed properly.

In recent times, Lee’s political ambitions have been saddled with much more urgent controversies – together with the continued authorized circumstances that proceed to hold over him, threatening to hamstring if not scuttle his profession.

Considered one of these involved a string of high-profile costs, together with corruption, bribery and breach of belief, related to a land improvement mission in 2023.

One other, maybe extra crucial authorized battle concerned allegations that Lee made a knowingly false assertion throughout a debate within the final presidential marketing campaign.

Through the debate, which aired on South Korean tv in December 2021, Lee denied personally figuring out Kim Moon-ki, a key determine in a corruption-ridden land improvement scandal who had taken his personal life simply days earlier.

Prosecutors alleged that declare was false, thus violating the Public Official Election Act, and in November 2024 Lee was convicted of the false statements cost and given a one-year suspended jail sentence.

Then, in March, an appeals court docket cleared him of the costs – just for that ruling to be overturned by South Korea’s Supreme Court docket. On the time of writing, the case remains to be awaiting a verdict.

Different threats towards Lee’s future political ambitions posed a extra deadly hazard.

In January 2024, whereas answering questions from reporters outdoors the development web site of a deliberate airport in Busan, Lee was stabbed within the neck by a person who had approached him asking for an autograph.

The damage to Lee’s jugular vein, although requiring in depth surgical procedure, was not crucial – however he campaigned for this election behind bulletproof glass, sporting a bulletproof vest, surrounded by brokers carrying ballistic briefcases.

The assailant, who had written an eight-page manifesto and needed to make sure that Lee by no means turned president, was sentenced to fifteen years in jail.

The assault raised issues about deepening political polarisation in South Korea, embodied maybe most publicly within the bitter rivalry between Lee and Yoon, and extra privately within the nation’s more and more excessive on-line discourse.

In December 2023, simply weeks earlier than Lee was attacked, a survey sponsored by the newspaper Hankyoreh discovered that greater than 50% of respondents stated they felt South Korea’s political divide worsening.

Some declare that, as Democratic Celebration chief, Lee performed a serious position in fuelling the issue, often blocking motions by Yoon’s authorities and successfully rendering him a lame-duck president.

Such fixed stonewalling by the Democratic Celebration solely exacerbated Yoon’s management struggles – which additionally included repeated impeachment makes an attempt towards administration officers and fixed opposition to his price range.

Lastly, because the stress towards him mounted, the previous president took the drastic step of declaring martial regulation.

Yoon’s declaration of martial regulation on 3 December – made in a self-proclaimed bid to get rid of “anti-state forces” and North Korea sympathisers – served because the catalyst for Lee to emerge as a number one presidential candidate.

Inside hours of the declaration, Lee appealed to the general public through a livestream broadcast and urged them to assemble in protest outdoors the Nationwide Meeting constructing in central Seoul.

Hundreds responded, clashing with police and blocking navy models as opposition lawmakers rushed into the meeting constructing, clambering over fences and partitions in a determined try to dam Yoon’s order.

Lee was amongst them, climbing over the fence to enter the Nationwide Meeting and serving to to cross the decision to raise martial regulation.

The Democratic Celebration later determined to question President Yoon – a call that was unanimously upheld by South Korea’s Constitutional Court docket on 4 April, 2025.

It was then that Lee started the trail to a full-fledged election bid, saying his resignation as chief of the Democratic Celebration on 9 April forward of his presidential run. Within the Democratic Celebration presidential main held on April 27, he was chosen as the final candidate with overwhelming assist.

The results of Yoon’s abortive martial regulation try was a political maelstrom from which South Korea remains to be reeling: a constitutional disaster that ended the previous president’s profession and left his PPP in tatters.

However of the small few who’ve managed to leverage that chaos to their benefit, none have benefitted greater than Lee.

He’s now president of South Korea, however his future within the courts is but to be determined.

They’ve agreed to postpone his authorized hearings till after the election, which implies he may very well be convicted whereas in workplace.

And that would imply South Korea, having simply endured a months-long interval of political turmoil, is probably not performed with upheaval simply but.