Seoul, South Korea – Seoul, South Korea (AP) – Lee Jae-Myung He was a child worker with a deformity of the arm. He tried to commit suicide. Later he made his way at the university and became a highly divisive politician who survived a sharp attack and struggles with numerous criminal positions.
His turbulent climax, as Lee, 60, the candidate of the main liberal Democratic partyHe was chosen as The new president of South Korea To succeed his conservative archrival Yoon Suk Yeolwho was expelled for his impressive imposition of martial law.
There are hopes and fears about Lee’s victory. Supporters think he is a capable leader who can do things and fix the deeply entrenched economic inequality and corruption. But critics say Lee will probably oppress political opponents and intensify a domestic division.
Here is a look at Lee, whose single, five -year presidency Start on Wednesday:
After graduating from a primary school, Lee had to work in several Factories in Seongnam, a city near Seoul, because his family could not pay his secondary education.
In a manufacturing baseball gloves, they crushed the left forearm by a press machine, obtaining a permanent arm disability. Lee said he suffered hitting his factories and hated meeting a girl who was a neighbor when he helped her garbage collection work in a traditional market.
Desperate, Lee tried to commit suicide twice, both without success. He later stood up and entered the Chung-Ang University of Seoul with a complete scholarship, before becoming a human rights lawyer.
“Hopes and evidence always come together. The roles of the tests do not make people surrender, but testing how serious and desperate their hopes are,” Lee said in a memory published in 2017.
Later, Lee entered politics and became the mayor and governor of Seongnam in the province of Gyeonggi. Once a strange politician, Lee jumped to fame in 2016 after making a series of ardent street speeches criticizing then conservative President Park Geun-Hyewho was later withdrawn from office for a corruption scandal.
“We are going to take it with our hands and send it to history,” Lee said during a demonstration in December 2016.
Since then, many of their comments have sharply polarized South Koreans.
Lee vilified the conservative establishment of South Korea as “false conservatives”. He hit An antimile defense system of the United States In South Korea as a source of tensions and reinforced compared US-Japan ties To a 1905 Washington-Tokyo agreement that, according to him, helped Japan colonize the Korean peninsula later.
Lee’s proposal to give a universal basic income to all citizens has invited accusations that he is a populist.
In 2022He lost the very disputed presidential elections before Yoon. In 2024, Lee was attacked For a man who told researchers that he wanted to kill Lee to avoid becoming president.
Recently, Lee has made few controversial or radical comments on foreign policy and security issues, and rather has promised to pursue pragmatic diplomacy.
He has repeatedly described South Korea Alliance with the United States as the basis of the country’s foreign policy and emphasized the need to maintain a trilateral Seoul-Washington-Tokyo Security Association.
“When it comes to what Lee said in the past, we do not know if he made such comments only to appeal to his supporters or if they showed their true nature,” said Shin Yul, a professor of politics at the Myonggi University of Seoul.
The main problems that you read will face immediately are The commercial war of the president of the United States, Donald Trump and other “America first” policies, and North Korea advance of the nuclear program. Both are vital issues for South Korea, but many experts say that there is not much diplomatic space for South Korea to produce important changes in their favor in both matters.
Paik Wooyeal, a professor at the Yansei University of Seoul, said Trump is “too overwhelming and dominant”, so who is in the leadership of South Korea, the country’s treatment with the United States will not be very different. He said that foreign policy advisors would also know that North Korea will not voluntarily renounce their nuclear weapons.
Lee comes in charge in the shadow of his own legal problems.
He is accused of five trials for corruption and other positions, and at one point, some of his legal battles threatened his commitment to the presidency.
Lee celebrated in March when the Seoul’s Superior Court turned a prison sentence suspended against him for violating the electoral law During the 2022 race. But it was found in May when the Supreme Court annulled that ruling and sent the case back to the Superior Court, citing a strong probability of its guilt. The hearings in the Superior Court finally postponed until after the elections.
If his conviction had been completed, Lee would have been forbidden to run for president.
Other judgments focus on their roles on dubious development and transfers of illegal money to North Korea, and their alleged misuse of official funds and persuade a witness of swear in false.
Lee’s five trials will probably be stopped since the Constitution of South Korea prevents a acting president from being accused of most crimes. But their rivals will disagree, because the Constitution does not clearly indicate if a president can be convicted of crimes in which the accusations arrived before assuming the position.
The Lee Democratic Party, which has the majority in the National Assembly, has been pressing to review the Criminal Procedures Law to suspend the ongoing criminal trials that involve a acting president until the end of his mandate. The conservatives have strongly criticized the movement.
During the presidential campaign, Lee promised not to pursue revenge against conservatives. However, he has also requested an exhaustive investigation of Yoon and his internal circle accusations of rebellion.
Lee’s opponents care that he can use these investigations to squeeze Yoon’s associates and prosecutors who believe he orchestrated investigations involving their criminal positions.
Yoon’s martial trick intensified a domestic division.
Declaring martial lawYoon portrayed Lee’s party as “anti-state” forces influenced by North Korea and China. He has also supported Electoral fraud theories without foundation Discredit the legislative majority of the liberals, which leads to their partisan anger to pour into the streets with signs of “stop theft.” Anti-mandate activists and citizensFor his part, he also recovered for weeks to demand his immediate dismissal.
With the liberals that remain in control of the legislature, Lee faces a much more favorable environment to advance their policies. The conservatives have expressed concern that reading and the Democratic Party will exercise a practically deactivated power to approve legislation previously blocked by Yoon administration, including bills aimed at strengthening protections for trade unionists against corporate demands and protecting farmers from volatile rice prices.
