Lee Jae-myung: The man set to take over South Korea's turbulent democracy

Irish Times

2 days ago

The crowd outside Seoul Children's Grand Park was a few hundred strong, many of them holding blue balloons and some with flags on flexible poles about 10 metres tall.
The mood was buoyant, principally because their Democratic Party candidate, Lee Jae-myung (61), was more than 10 points ahead in the polls. He is on course to win South Korea's presidential election next Tuesday.
Warm-up speakers reminded supporters that early voting was under way (more than 20 per cent of eligible voters had cast their ballots by Friday morning) and led chants of the candidate's name.
Then local politicians dressed in the blue-and-white campaign uniform joined younger activists in a K pop-style dance to welcome Lee onstage.
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Lee, who survived an assassination attempt last year, campaigns in a bulletproof vest and he spoke from a lectern behind three protective screens with personal protection officers on either side of him.
Narrowly defeated by
Yoon Suk Yeol
of the conservative People Power Party in 2022, Lee's second tilt at the
South Korean
presidency has come two years ahead of schedule following
Yoon's impeachment in April over his declaration of martial law last December
.
'I never imagined that martial law would be declared in broad daylight for no apparent reason. I couldn't believe it,' Lee told the crowd at Seoul Children's Grand Park.
'This country, which is one of the world's top 10 economic powers and even called a cultural powerhouse, so that people all over the world sing Korean pop songs, watch Korean dramas, eat Korean food, and want to visit Korea ... would anyone believe that such a country would have a coup and become a military dictatorship where soldiers run the country?'
Yoon Suk Yeol, then South Korean president, makes a televised briefing on December 3rd in which he declares martial law. Photograph: Ahn Young-joon/AP
Yoon, frustrated by what he saw as illegitimate obstructionism by the Democratic Party's majority in the National Assembly, declared martial law in a televised announcement at 10.30pm on December 3rd.
He suspended all political activity, put the media under state control and deployed hundreds of armed troops to the legislature in an attempt to prevent it from meeting.
Crowds gathered at the National Assembly building to stop the military from occupying it and helped legislators to climb over barriers to go inside.
By 4.30am, they voted by 190 votes to zero to overturn the martial law declaration. Six hours after he made it, Yoon revoked it.
The legislature voted to impeach Yoon on December 14th and he was arrested a month later for abuse of power, prompting a riot by his supporters.
Last month, the constitutional court unanimously confirmed Yoon's impeachment, opening the way to next week's presidential election.
Lee has dismissed the conservative People Power Party's candidate Kim Moon Soo as 'Yoon's avatar', warning that his victory could see a return of the former president and those around him.
Political scientist Kim Woo Sang said: 'The impact is that the framing of this presidential election is the one the Democratic Party is making, that we have to do away with the so-called treacherous and treasonous forces, and that they are the democrats which will turn the country around.'
Kim Moon Soo, centre, the candidate for South Korea's People Power Party, arrives to cast his ballot during early voting for the presidential election on Thursday. Photograph: Jung Yeon-je/Getty
A former adviser to Kim Dae-jung, the Democratic Party's most successful president of South Korea, Kim Woo Sang also served as a member of the National Assembly.
But he is suspicious of Lee, whom the conservative People Power Party accuse of having dictatorial tendencies.
'If he becomes a dictator, he will be a dictator because he already has the legislature doing his bidding, constitutional or not. They say that he can do no wrong,' he said.
'So if he becomes president, he will push through Bills as he sees fit. He's already been blackmailing and threatening the judiciary, which was the only leftover of the so-called free system.'
Born into poverty in a remote mountain village, Lee skipped secondary school to work in a factory where an industrial accident caused a permanent injury to his arm at the age of 13. He went back to school later, winning a scholarship to university to study law and going on to work as a human rights lawyer.
A former mayor of Seongnam, a city of one million people and governor of Gyeonggi province, Lee has faced investigations for corruption, bribery and conflicts of interest.
Last November, he was convicted of making false statements during the 2022 presidential election campaign, but the conviction was overturned by the Seoul high court in March.
The supreme court overturned that decision on May 1st, sending the case back to the high court. His Democratic Party has floated a proposal to expand the supreme court from 14 justices to 30 or even 100, including non-lawyers.
Lee has played down the proposal during the campaign, but reforming the judiciary is among the proposals in his party's official platform published this week.
The platform also includes proposals for democratic control over the president's right to declare martial law and plans to punish those who supported Yoon's actions last December.
Although Yoon's invocation of martial law was a shock to South Korea's democracy, his fall from grace is part of a pattern. Since the introduction of democracy in the late 1980s, almost every president has ended up being impeached or jailed.
'To all intents and purposes, it's a democracy. But its democracy has a particular characteristic where the emphasis is on the rule by the people as opposed to the rule by the institutions,' said Michael Breen, the author of The New Koreans, who has lived in Seoul for more than 40 years.
'There's a word called minshim, which means public sentiment, but in the Korean meaning it's something more visceral. It's like a collective emotional feeling. What happened when democracy came is that authoritarianism went out of the window and moving into its place was this idea of the voice of the people.'
Protesters take part in a demonstration last December in Seoul against Yoon Suk Yeol, then president. Photograph: Ezra Acayan/Getty
As a former correspondent for British and American newspapers, Breen has watched the same pattern unfold during each South Korean presidency. The president can only serve one five-year term in office and each one starts with a high approval rating.
'Then it goes down, down, down. And by the end, their own party's candidate to succeed them doesn't want their support it because it's just poison, he said.
'And what we've had added into that mix of that pattern now is impeachment. So when the Democratic Party won a majority last year in the assembly, they interpreted that as a message from the people. Their stated objective was to get rid of Yoon, and then he obliged by being a jerk.'
Despite his legal problems, Lee may be protected from the threat of impeachment by the majority his Democratic Party commands in the national assembly and the lack of legislative elections for the next three years.
So he has a good chance of implementing the policies he has campaigned on, including on foreign affairs and relations with
North Korea
.
Yoon took a hard line towards Pyongyang, downgrading the institutional framework that is supposed to be preparing for reunification and focusing instead on bolstering South Korea's defence. He drew close to the
United States
and, more controversially,
Japan
and adopted a more confrontational approach to
China
and
Russia
.
A woman in Seoul walks past a banner showing Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, and Kim Moon Soo, the People Power Party's contender. Photograph: Anthony Wallace/Getty
Lee has promised to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula by restoring communication lines with Pyongyang, although he has acknowledged there is no immediate prospect of dialogue. This is because North Korea has formally abandoned its aspiration for unification and declared South Korea its enemy.
Lee made clear this week that one motivation for his wish to renew engagement with North Korea is to ensure that Seoul is not cut out of talks if
Donald Trump
revives his negotiations with
Kim Jong Un
. Trump met the North Korean leader during his first term in the White House and they exchanged numerous letters, but denuclearisation talks ended in failure.
'The North Korean denuclearisation process has long since stalled. The North's nuclear and missile capabilities are growing stronger every day. We can no longer stand idly by,' he said.
'North Korea policy should not be a political tool. We should only think about how to achieve peace and unification.'
Lee has also advocated a reset of South Korea's relationships with China and Russia, along with other Brics countries, a prospect that causes unease in some European capitals. He defended his approach this week as a pragmatic response to a shifting geopolitical landscape.
'China is South Korea's important trading partner and a key influence on the security of the Korean Peninsula. I would stabilise the relationship between China, which has reached its lowest point under the previous administration,' he said.
'US-Russia relations and the war in Ukraine are entering a new phase. I would treat our relations with Russia from a national interest-first perspective, contribute to the reconstruction of Ukraine and conduct pragmatic diplomacy for the security of Korea and our businesses.'
Voters in Seoul queue to cast their ballots on Friday during early voting in the presidential election. Photograph: Anthony Wallace/Getty
Trump has threatened to impose a 25 per cent
tariff
on all Korean goods, although he has postponed its implementation for 90 days along with his 'reciprocal tariffs' on other countries. Reports from Washington suggest that his administration is also considering cuts to the US military presence in South Korea and demanding that Seoul pays more to keep them there.
'I would say if Trump pulls troops out and raises the tariffs like that, I think public opinion towards the US will certainly not be good,' Kim said.
'And then if Lee Jae-myung is president, he will use that to oppose the US, reorient and grow closer to China and Russia. I think that's how it's going to work out.'
Breen is more sanguine and although he has his doubts about Lee's commitment to real political reform that could limit his powers as president he believes fears about a shift in foreign policy are overblown.
'I think he's a pragmatist. He's talked about the importance of the American relationship and it's the most important relationship,' he said.
'He might make an effort towards China, but he'll have to be careful not to be embarrassed by them because they will want something more than he's able to give.
'I think every country is having this problem now because of where Trump is going with tariffs and stuff. You've got to be on the right side of that in a very pragmatic way.'