Lee Jae-Myung’s hard way to the South Korean presidency reflects the stratospheric rise of his country of grinding poverty at one of the main global economies.
When Lee, a school scandal dropping out of lawyer who became a lawyer, which was elected in a landslide on Tuesday, was born in 1963, the gross domestic product (GDP) in South Korea (GDP) per capita was comparable to the sub -Saharan nations of sub -Saharan Africa.
South Korea was so poor, in fact, that Lee’s exact birthday is a mystery – his parents, like many families alerted from infant mortality of the time, took about a year to record his birth.
However, even according to the standards of the day, the first years of Lee were marked by deprivation and adversity, including stays as a minor factory worker.
Known for his populist and frank style, Lee, the standard carrier of the left Democratic Party, has often credited his humble beginnings with the modeling of his progressive beliefs.
“Poverty is not a sin, but I have always been particularly sensitive to the injustices that I have experienced because of poverty,” said Lee in a speech in 2022.
“The reason why I am in politics now is to help those who still suffer in the pit of poverty and despair that I have managed to escape, by building a fair society and a world of hope.”
The fifth of the seven children, Lee abandoned the school at the start of his adolescence to move to Seongnam, a satellite city in Seoul, and to take a job to support his family.
At 15, Lee was injured in an accident in a factory making baseball gloves, leaving him definitively incapable of straightening his left arm.
Despite the missing years of formal education, Lee graduated from college and high school by studying for exams outside working hours.
In 1982, he was admitted to Chung-Ang University in Seoul to study law and succeeded in the bar about the bar four years later.
During his career in law, Lee was known to defend the rights of the oppressed, including victims of industrial accidents and residents facing expulsion due to urban redevelopment projects.
In 2006, Lee made his first foray into politics with an unsuccessful offer for the mayor of Seongnam, which he followed two years later with a failed race for a parliamentary seat in the city.
In 2010, he finally burst into politics by winning the elections to the mayor of Seongnam during his second attempt and managed to re -elect four years later.
From 2018 to 2021, Lee was governor of Gyeonggi, the most populous province in the country, which surrounds Seoul.
As mayor and governor, Lee drew attention beyond his immediate electorate by deploying a series of populist economic policies, including a limited form of universal basic income.
After having resigned as governor, Lee entered the national scene as a candidate of the Democratic Party during the 2022 presidential election, which he lost against Yoon Suk-Yeol by 0.73% of the votes-the narrowest margin in South Korean history.
Despite a multitude of political and personal scandals, culminating in at least five legal affairs, Lee led the Democratic Party to one of its best results in the legislative elections from last year, offering it 173 seats in the National Assembly with 300 places.
After the dismissal and withdrawal of Yoon from the presidential office following his declaration of short -term law of the martial law in December, Lee obtained the appointment of his party without seriously challenge, collecting almost 90% of the primary vote.
“His style of communication is direct and simple, and it is clever to recognize social and political tendencies, which is a rare quality among politicians of his generation in Korea,” LEE MYUNG-HEE, expert in South Korean politics in Michigan State University, in Korea.
“However, this style of direct communication can sometimes hinder its political progress, as it can easily offend its opponents.”
During his electoral campaign, Lee played his progressive references in favor of a more pragmatic personality and a softer iteration of the populist economic agenda which fueled its ascent to national prominence.
In the weeks leading to the vote, Lee’s victory was rarely in doubt, with his closest competitor, Kim Moon-Soo, of the Conservative People Power Party, often dragging the candidate with more than 20 points in opinion polls.
“A progressive pragmatist”
As president, Lee is committed to prioritizing the economy, proposing, among other things, a major increase in investment in artificial intelligence, the introduction of a week of work of four and a half days and tax deductions for parents in proportion to the number of children.
On Foreign Affairs, he promised to repair relations with North Korea while putting pressure on its ultimate denuclearization – in accordance with the traditional position of its Democratic Party – and to maintain the security alliance of the United States -Kore without alienating China and Russia.
“I would call him a progressive pragmatist. I don’t think he will stick to coherent progressive lines or even conservative lines,” Yong-Chool, director of the Center for Korea Studies at the University of Washington, told Al Jazeera.
“Critics call him a kind of manipulator; his supporters call him flexible,” said Ha.
“I would say he is a survivor.”
While Lee will come up with the support of a commanding majority in the National Assembly, he will take the stewardship of a deeply polarized country and accumulated by divisions after the indictment of Yoon.
“The Korean political landscape remains very polarized and conflicting, and its ability to sail in this environment will be crucial for its success,” said Lee, professor of the State University of Michigan.
Lee will also have to sail in an international volatile environment shaped by wars in Gaza and Ukraine, high power rivalries and the help of international trade by the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
For Lee personally, his election, after two unsuccessful offers for the presidency, marks an extraordinary return adapted to the history of origin against the smells which propelled its ascent.
Lee had faced five criminal procedures, including accusations of violations of elections law and violation of confidence in the context of a land corruption scandal.
After his elections, Lee is almost certain to avoid the trial during his five -year term.
Under the South Korean Constitution, the presidents in office benefit from the immunity of prosecution, except in the event of an insurrection or betrayal – although there is a debate among the legal researchers on the question of whether the protection extends to the procedures which are already underway.
To remove the ambiguity, the Democratic Party last month adopted an amendment to the penal code indicating that the criminal procedure against an elected president president must be suspended until the end of his mandate.