Lee Jae Myung’s hard and intense path to South Korea’s presidency reflects the rise from stratospheric poverty in his country to one of the world’s major economies.
When Lee, a lawyer who was elected landslide-prone to a scandal-prone school dropout, was born in 1963, Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) was on par with sub-Saharan African countries.
Korea was so poor that Lee’s exact birthday is a mystery. His parents took about a year to register his birth, as many families warn of empty infant mortality rates of this era.
But even by the standards of that day, Lee’s early days were characterized by deprivation and adversity, including stints as a minor factory worker.
Known for his populist and outspoken style, Lee, the standard bearer of the left-leaning Democrats, often believes his humble beginnings by shaping his progressive beliefs.
“Poverty is not a sin, but I have always been particularly sensitive to the injustice I have experienced because of poverty,” Lee said in a 2022 speech.
“The reason I’m in politics now is to help those who are still struggling in poverty and despair that I have managed to escape by building a fair society and a world of hope.”
Lee, the fifth of seven children, dropped out of school in her early teens and moved to Seongnam, a satellite city in Seoul, where she hired her to support her family.
At the age of 15, Lee was injured in an accident at the factory making baseball gloves and was unable to straighten his left arm.
Despite a lack of years of formal education, Lee graduated from middle school by studying for an off-hours exam.
In 1982 he enrolled at Jeonggan University in Seoul to study law, and four years later passed the bar exam.
During his legal career, Lee was known for defending the rights of the vulnerable, including victims of industrial accidents and residents facing evictions due to urban redevelopment projects.
In 2006, Lee made his first foray into politics, failing to bid against Seongnam’s mayor.
In 2010, he eventually broke into politics by winning the mayoral election of Seongnam on his second attempt, and was re-election four years later.
From 2018 to 2021, Lee served as Governor Governor of the country surrounding Seoul’s most populous state.
As both mayor and governor, Lee has attracted attention beyond his immediate voters by developing economic policies that include a series of populists, including a limited form of universal basic income.
After resigning as governor, Lee entered the national stage as a Democratic candidate in the 2022 presidential election, losing to Yoon Sook-Yeol in 0.73% of the vote, the narrowest margin in South Korea’s history.
Facing numerous political and personal scandals, leading to at least five legal cases, Lee led the Democrats to one of the best results in last year’s Congressional elections, delivering 173 seats in the 300-seat parliament.
Following the short-lived martial law declaration in December, after Yoon’s bluff each and removal from the presidential office, Lee won the party nomination without a major challenge, winning nearly 90% of the first vote.
“His communication style is direct and outspoken, and he is keen to recognize social and political tendencies, a rare quality among politicians of his generation in Korea,” Lee Myung-hee, a Korean politics expert at Michigan State University, told Al Jazeera.
“However, this direct communication style can hinder his political progress, as it can easily anger his opponents.”
During his election campaign, Lee devalued his progressive qualifications in favor of his more practical persona and a mild iteration of the populist economic agenda that promoted the rise to national prominence.
In the weeks leading up to the vote, Lee’s victory was rarely questionable.
“Progressive Pragmatist”
As president, Lee has committed to prioritizing the economy, and has proposed a major boost to investing in artificial intelligence, the introduction of four and a half days of work, and a parent’s tax credit proportional to the number of children.
On diplomacy, he has pledged to revise his ties with North Korea, promoting its ultimate denuclearization in line with his Democrats’ traditional stance, and maintaining the US-Korea security alliance without alienating China and Russia.
“I call him a progressive pragmatist. I don’t think he’ll stick to a consistent progressive or conservative line,” Yongchurha, director of the Center for Korea Studies at the University of Washington, told Al Jazeera.
“Critics call him a kind of manipulator, and his supporters call him flexibility,” Ha said.
“I think he’s a survivor.”
Lee will take office with the support of a commanding majority in the Diet, but he will take control of the country, which is deeply polarized and plagued by the department, following Yun’s bluffing each.
“The political landscape in Korea remains very polarized and conflicted, and his ability to navigate this environment is essential to his success,” says Lee, a professor at Michigan State University.
Lee also needs to navigate the unstable international environment, the Great Power Rivals and the reforms of US President Donald Trump’s international trade, shaped by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Personally for Lee, after failing two bids for the presidency, his election marks an extraordinary comeback worthy of the narrative of the origins of the antagonists who propelled his rise.
Lee faced five criminal cases, including accusations of election law violations and trust violations related to a land corruption scandal.
After his election, Lee is almost certain that he will avoid trial during his five-year in office.
Under the South Korean constitution, presidents on the ground enjoy exemptions from the prosecutors except in cases of riots and rebellion, but there is debate among legal scholars whether protections extend to already ongoing lawsuits.
To remove ambiguity, Democrats passed an amendment to the criminal law last month, which stated that criminal cases against presidential elected people must be suspended until the end of their term.
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