Once seen as divisive, South Korea's new leader Lee tries the charming route

Straits Times

2 days ago

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South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung during a 'people's appointment ceremony', which is the inauguration ceremony, at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, on Aug 15.
SEOUL – When President Lee Jae Myung visited Sancheong, a county in southern South Korea where 14 people were killed in floods and landslides last month, he did something that his unpopular predecessor had refused to do: meet with victims after deadly disasters.
'I am sorry,' he said to villagers.
'No sir, it was nature at work,' one of them responded. 'Even the president couldn't have done anything.'
Such small yet repeated ​episodes of the president interacting with people, captured by TV cameras, ​have resonated throughout South Korea since Mr Lee took office in early June.
His appearance of being accessible and a listener, honed when he was a mayor and a provincial governor, is a tactic that is working well for him as president, too. It is a contrast with Yoon Suk Yeol, his conservative rival who was impeached and ousted after declaring martial law.
Mr Lee's human touch has helped him launch his new administration with strong approval ratings, only weeks after an election in which many South Koreans expressed deep suspicions about him.
When he was the opposition leader, he was blamed along with Yoon for South Korea's deep political polarisation, which had paralysed the government: Mr Lee was as confrontational toward Yoon as Yoon was dismissive of Mr Lee.
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As president, he has adopted a more approachable style in an effort to mend a country that he has said was on the verge of civil war. He pledged greater national unity when he took office, even as police and prosecutors went after his vanquished political enemies.
But the real tests for Mr Lee lie ahead and have no near-term solutions. They include a rapidly aging population, a slowing economy and the rise of right-wing radicalism at home. Internationally, he must deal with a demanding US President Donald Trump and tensions with North Korea.
Late in July, Mr Lee removed a cloud of uncertainty over the country's export-driven economy when his government struck a trade deal to reduce Mr Trump's tariffs on South Korean products to 15 per cent. In one survey, nearly 64 per cent of the respondents reacted positively to the deal.
A different approach
​While in office, Yoon refused to meet families who had lost ​children in a Halloween 2022 crowd crush in Seoul that killed nearly 160 people, mostly young, which they blamed on government negligence. ​
His bodyguards forcibly removed critics who shouted at him during public events.​ Yoon called the opposition-dominated National Assembly 'a den of criminals' and tried to silence them by ​military force during his short-lived imposition of martial law in December.
Mr Lee has taken a more pragmatic approach with the public and with governance – even as special counsels appointed by him go after Yoon, his wife Kim Keon Hee, and their associates for criminal charges, including corruption. Yoon was already on trial on insurrection charges stemming from his martial law.
Mr Lee had his first lunch as president with opposition leaders at the National Assembly, a stark departure from Yoon, who had repeatedly ignored calls for meetings from Mr Lee when their roles were reversed.
'We mix cement, gravel, sand and water to make concrete,' he said in July during his first presidential news conference, stressing the importance of cooperating with people with different political views.
Mr Lee won the election with a little over 49 per cent of the vote.​ But in a testament to the political divide, Mr Kim Moon-soo,​ the candidate of Yoon's former party, won 41 per cent despite his relative obscurity. One survey showed that most of those who voted for Mr Kim did so not because they supported him, but because they did not want Mr Lee elected.
Before he became president, Mr Lee had faced the prospect of several criminal trials, including on charges of violating election laws and inducing someone to commit perjury, which are now on hold with him in office.
Conservative South Koreans feared that Mr Lee's progressive agenda would imperil the country's alliance with the United States. Mr Lee has said he wants to strengthen ties with Washington while restarting dialogue with North Korea and improving relations with China, a tricky balancing act.
But since Mr Lee took office, some of his critics have begun mellowing toward him. Early in August, his approval ratings climbed to 65 per cent​ – a level of support Yoon never enjoyed.
Empathy for workers
So far, Lee's leadership has appealed the most to workers, whom he seems to empathize with the best. He used to be a teenage sweatshop worker before rising in politics.
In July, he visited a company outside Seoul that had seen the deaths of three workers in industrial accidents at its bread-making factories since 2022. When he arrived, he encountered a picket line of workers holding signs that said: 'Mr. President, please help. We don't want to die while making bread.'
Inside, Mr Lee, whose father and brother once worked in bread factories, launched a salvo of questions at the factory managers, forcing them to admit that many workers worked 12-hour night shifts for four straight days a week, from 7.30pm to 7.30am. Two of the fatal accidents happened early in the morning when workers were tired.
The company later said it would stop its employees from working more than eight hours on a night shift. But Mr Lee offered no solution to the low wages that compelled the workers to work long hours in the first place, leading his critics to claim that he had more style than substance.
Mr Lee learnt this week how fluid his approval rating could be when it dipped below 60 per cent. NYTIMES