Lee Jae-myung’s hardscrabble path to the South Korean presidency mirrors his nation’s stratospheric rise from grinding poverty to one of many world’s main economies.
When Lee, a scandal-prone faculty dropout-turned-lawyer who was elected in a landslide on Tuesday, was born in 1963, South Korea’s gross home product (GDP) per capita was comparable with sub-Saharan African nations.
South Korea was so poor, actually, that Lee’s actual birthday is a thriller – his dad and mom, like many households alert to the sky-high toddler mortality of the period, took a couple of 12 months to register his start.
But even by the requirements of the day, Lee’s early years have been marked by deprivation and adversity, together with stints as an underage manufacturing unit labourer.
Identified for his populist and outspoken fashion, Lee, the usual bearer for the left-leaning Democratic Celebration, has typically credited his humble beginnings with moulding his progressive beliefs.
“Poverty just isn’t a sin, however I used to be at all times significantly delicate to the injustices I skilled due to poverty,” Lee mentioned in a speech in 2022.
“The explanation I’m in politics now’s to assist these nonetheless struggling within the pit of poverty and despair that I managed to flee, by constructing a good society and a world with hope.”
The fifth of seven youngsters, Lee dropped out of faculty in his early teenagers to maneuver to Seongnam, a satellite tv for pc metropolis of Seoul, and take up employment to help his household.
At age 15, Lee was injured in an accident at a manufacturing unit making baseball gloves, leaving him completely unable to straighten his left arm.
Regardless of lacking years of formal training, Lee graduated from center and highschool by learning for the exams outdoors of labor hours.
In 1982, he gained admission to Chung-Ang College in Seoul to review legislation and went on to cross the bar examination 4 years later.
Throughout his legislation profession, Lee was recognized for championing the rights of the underdog, together with victims of commercial accidents and residents dealing with eviction because of city redevelopment initiatives.
In 2006, Lee made his first foray into politics with an unsuccessful bid for the mayorship of Seongnam, which he adopted two years later with a failed run for a parliamentary seat within the metropolis.
In 2010, he lastly broke into politics by profitable Seongnam’s mayoral election on his second try and went on to earn re-election 4 years later.
From 2018 to 2021, Lee served as governor of Gyeonggi, the nation’s most populous province, which surrounds Seoul.
Each as mayor and governor, Lee attracted consideration past his fast voters by rolling out a collection of populist-flavoured financial insurance policies, together with a restricted type of common fundamental revenue.
After stepping down as governor, Lee entered the nationwide stage because the Democratic Celebration candidate within the 2022 presidential election, which he misplaced to Yoon Suk-yeol by 0.73 p.c of the vote – the narrowest margin in South Korean historical past.
Regardless of dealing with a slew of political and private scandals, culminating in a minimum of 5 authorized instances, Lee led the Democratic Celebration to one in every of its finest ends in final 12 months’s parliamentary elections, delivering it 173 seats within the 300-seat Nationwide Meeting.
After Yoon’s impeachment and removing from the presidential workplace following his short-lived declaration of martial legislation in December, Lee earned his celebration’s nomination with out critical problem, garnering almost 90 p.c of the first vote.
“His communication fashion is direct and easy, and he’s astute at recognising social and political developments, which is a uncommon high quality amongst politicians of his era in Korea,” Lee Myung-hee, an knowledgeable on South Korean politics at Michigan State College, advised Al Jazeera.
“Nevertheless, this direct communication fashion can typically hinder his political development, as it might simply offend his opponents.”
Throughout his election marketing campaign, Lee performed down his progressive credentials in favour of a extra pragmatic persona and a milder iteration of the populist financial agenda that powered his rise to nationwide prominence.
Within the weeks resulting in the vote, Lee’s victory was hardly ever unsure, along with his closest competitor, Kim Moon-soo, of the conservative Folks Energy Celebration, typically trailing the candidate by greater than 20 factors in opinion polls.
‘A progressive pragmatist’
As president, Lee has pledged to prioritise the economic system, proposing, amongst different issues, a serious increase in funding in synthetic intelligence, the introduction of a four-and-a-half-day work week, and tax deductions for fogeys in proportion to the variety of youngsters they’ve.
On overseas affairs, he has promised to fix relations with North Korea whereas pushing for its final denuclearisation – in step with the standard stance of his Democratic Celebration – and preserve the US-Korea safety alliance with out alienating China and Russia.
“I’d name him a progressive pragmatist. I don’t suppose he’ll stick with any constant progressive strains and even conservative strains,” Yong-chool Ha, director of the Heart for Korea Research on the College of Washington, advised Al Jazeera.
“Critics name him a sort of manipulator; his supporters name him versatile,” Ha mentioned.
“I’d say he’s a survivor.”
Whereas Lee will enter workplace with the backing of a commanding majority within the Nationwide Meeting, he’ll take stewardship of a rustic that’s deeply polarised and racked by divisions following Yoon’s impeachment.
“The Korean political panorama stays extremely polarised and confrontational, and his means to navigate this setting will probably be essential to his success,” mentioned Lee, the Michigan State College professor.
Lee may also must navigate a risky worldwide setting formed by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, nice energy rivalries, and United States President Donald Trump’s shake-up of worldwide commerce.
For Lee personally, his election, after two unsuccessful bids for the presidency, marks a unprecedented comeback befitting the against-the-odds origin story that propelled his rise.
Lee had been dealing with 5 felony proceedings, together with fees of election legislation violations and breach of belief in reference to a land corruption scandal.
Following his election, Lee is all however sure to keep away from trial throughout his five-year time period in workplace.
Underneath the South Korean structure, sitting presidents take pleasure in immunity from prosecution, besides in instances of revolt or treason – though there may be debate amongst authorized students about whether or not the safety extends to proceedings which are already below approach.
To take away ambiguity, the Democratic Celebration final month handed an modification to the felony code stating that felony proceedings in opposition to an individual who’s elected president should be suspended till the top of their time period.