How a former manufacturing unit employee rose to South Korea’s presidency

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SEONGNAM, South Korea — South Korean President-elect Lee Jae-myung has all the time described his politics as deeply private, born of the “wretchedness” of his youth.

In his final presidential run three years in the past, when his conservative opponent Yoon Suk Yeol, a former prosecutor, appealed to the rule of regulation, Lee instructed a narrative from his childhood: how his household’s poverty pushed him into manufacturing unit meeting strains whereas his friends had been coming into center college — and the way his mom would stroll him to work each morning, holding his hand.

“Behind each coverage that I carried out was my very own impoverished and abject life, the on a regular basis struggles of peculiar South Koreans,” he mentioned in March 2022. “The rationale I’m in politics right now is as a result of I need to create … a world of hope for many who are nonetheless struggling in the identical puddle of poverty and despair that I managed to flee.”

Though Lee misplaced that race by 0.73 of a proportion level — or 247,077 votes — it was Yoon who set the stage for Lee’s comeback. Impeached midway into his time period for his declaration of martial regulation in December, the previous president is now on trial for rebellion.

Within the snap presidential election that happened Tuesday, the liberal Lee emerged the winner, with South Korea’s three main tv broadcasters calling the race simply earlier than midnight right here.

On the marketing campaign path, Lee framed his run as a mission to restore the nation’s democratic norms. However he additionally returned to the theme that has, over time, advanced from childhood craving into his signature political model: the promise of a society that gives its most weak a “thick security mat” — a means out of the puddle.

Born in December 1963, the fifth of seven siblings, Lee grew up in Seongnam, a metropolis close to the southeastern fringe of Seoul that, by the point his household settled there in 1976, was often called a neighborhood for many who had been evicted from the capital’s shantytowns.

The household rented a single semi-basement room by an area market, the place his father made a dwelling as a cleaner. At occasions his household lived on discarded fruit he picked up alongside his route. Lee’s mom labored as a rest room attendant simply across the nook.

Lee spent his teenage years hopping from one manufacturing unit to a different to assist. His first job, at 13, was soldering lead at a jewellery maker for 12 hours a day, respiratory within the acrid fumes. At one other job, the proprietor skipped out with out paying Lee three months’ value of wages.

A couple of years later, whereas working a press machine at a baseball glove manufacturing unit, Lee suffered an accident that completely disfigured his left arm. In despair, Lee tried to finish his personal life. He survived solely as a result of the pharmacist he went to for sleeping tablets had caught wind of his intentions, giving him digestive medicine as an alternative.

People walk past rows of banners on a street

Lee then started finding out for center college and highschool at night time after getting off work. He proved to be a gifted pupil, incomes himself a full journey to Chung-Ang College to review regulation.

After passing South Korea’s bar examination in 1986, he was moved by a lecture given by Roh Moo-hyun, a human rights lawyer who went on to turn into president in 2003, and the 26-year-old Lee opened up his personal authorized apply to do the identical.

Seongnam by then was quickly creating, turning into the location of a number of tasks, and Lee threw himself into native watchdog activism.

Ha Dong-geun, 73, who spent a decade organizing within the metropolis with Lee, recalled the day they met: The latter wore an expression of nice urgency — “like one thing dangerous would occur if he didn’t instantly hit the bottom operating.”

He added: “He wasn’t afraid of what others considered him.”

Ha remembered Lee as a eager strategic thoughts, with a knack for “discovering out his opponent’s weaknesses.” But regardless of the noise they made, substantive change proved more durable to attain, resulting in Lee’s political awakening in 2004.

A yr earlier, two of the town’s main hospitals had shut down, threatening the accessibility of emergency care in its poorest neighborhoods. However although Lee’s marketing campaign had gathered almost 20,000 signatures from residents to construct a public hospital of their place, the proposal was struck down nearly instantly by the town council.

“These in energy don’t care in regards to the well being and lives of individuals except there are earnings to be made,” Lee wrote in 2021 of his response then. “In the event that they received’t do it, let’s do it ourselves. As a substitute of asking for it from another person, I’ll turn into mayor and do it with my very own palms.”

A man with dark hair, in glasses, lying on the ground with eyes closed, with hands placed over his neck

Lee was mayor of Seongnam from 2010 to 2018. Throughout that point, he repaid over $400 million in municipal debt left behind by his predecessor. He moved his workplace down from the ninth to the second ground, incessantly showing in particular person to area questions or complaints from residents.

However he was greatest identified for his welfare insurance policies, which he rolled out regardless of intense opposition from the then-conservative central authorities: free college lunches, free college uniforms for middle-schoolers and monetary help for brand new moms in search of postpartum care. For all 24-year-old residents, the town additionally offered an annual fundamental earnings of round $720 within the type of money vouchers that might be used at native companies.

In 2016, when the plight of a highschool pupil who couldn’t afford sanitary pads utilizing a shoe insole as an alternative made nationwide headlines, the town additionally added a program that gave underprivileged teenage women money for feminine hygiene merchandise. A couple of years later, Lee additionally made good on his marketing campaign promise to construct the general public hospital that had first propelled him into politics.

“My private experiences made me conscious of how merciless this world could be to those that don’t have anything,” he mentioned in 2021.

Although it has been years since Lee left the town to turn into the governor of Gyeonggi province and to stage three presidential runs, his monitor report nonetheless conjures up fierce loyalty in Seongnam’s working-class neighborhoods, the place Lee is remembered as a doer who taken care of even the little issues.

“His openness and willingness to speak resonated with lots of people,” mentioned Kim Seung-man, 67, a store proprietor in Sangdaewon Market, the place Lee’s household eked out a dwelling within the Seventies. “Working-class individuals determine with him as a result of he had such a troublesome childhood.”

A man raises a fist as he speaks while holding a red sign, joined by a large crowd also holding signs in the street

And whereas the Seongnam Residents Medical Heart — which opened in 2020 — is deep within the purple and has turn into a goal for Lee’s critics who dismiss his welfare insurance policies as low cost populism, Kim says it’s a lifeline to this working-class neighborhood.

“It was a therapy hub for COVID sufferers through the pandemic,” he mentioned. “Serving the general public good means doing so no matter whether or not it’s worthwhile or not.”

Past Seongnam’s working-class neighborhoods, Lee has provoked in lots of an equally intense dislike — a truth that can’t be defined by his insurance policies alone.

Some have attributed this to his brusque, generally confrontational demeanor, others to classist prejudice. Lee has pointed to his standing as an “outsider” on this planet of South Korean institution politics, the place the paths of most formidable younger politicians observe a script he has eschewed: getting in line behind a celebration heavyweight who will open doorways to favorable legislative seats.

“I’ve by no means turn into indebted to anybody throughout my time in politics,” Lee mentioned at a information convention final month.

He has confronted assaults from inside his personal celebration, and conservatives have forged him as a tyrant and a legal, noting allegations in opposition to him in authorized circumstances. Former President Yoon cited the “legislative tyranny” of the Lee-led liberal opposition as justification for declaring martial regulation in December.

“There are nonetheless controversies over character or ethics trailing Lee,” mentioned Cho Jin-man, a political scientist at Duksung Girls’s College. “He doesn’t have a squeaky clear picture.”

Since shedding the 2022 election, Lee has confronted trial on quite a few fees, together with election regulation violations and the mishandling of an actual property improvement venture as mayor of Seongnam — indictments which Lee has decried as politically motivated assaults by Yoon and his allies.

A man with dark hair, in glasses, dark suit and tie, speaks before a microphone

Few of the allegations in opposition to Lee have caught. Others, like an election regulation clause that prohibits candidates from mendacity throughout their campaigns, is an oft-abused technicality that would go away few politicians standing had been it persistently enforced.

“Quite the opposite, these have solely led to perceptions that there are issues with the prosecution service,” Cho mentioned.

In latest months, Lee has tried to clean the rougher edges of his public persona, vowing to fix the nation’s more and more flamable partisan rifts.

Final yr, after he survived an assassination try during which the assailant’s blade nicked a significant vein in his neck, Lee denounced the “politics of hate” that had taken root within the nation, calling for a brand new period of mutual respect and coexistence.

In his latest marketing campaign, Lee has billed his welfare agenda, which incorporates pledges for higher labor protections in addition to extra public housing and public healthcare, not as class warfare however as commonsense pragmatism, reflecting his efforts to win over reasonable conservatives.

However there are nonetheless questions whether or not Lee, whose celebration now controls each the chief and legislative branches, can be profitable.

”He now has a transparent path to push by what he desires very effectively,” Cho mentioned. “However the nature of energy is such that those that maintain it don’t essentially train restraint.”

Though Lee has promised to not search retribution in opposition to his political enemies as president, he has additionally made it clear that those that collaborated with former President Yoon’s unlawful energy seize can be held accountable — a transfer that can inevitably inflame partisan discord.

His working-class background has not staved off criticisms from labor activists, who say his proposal to spice up the home semiconductor trade would stroll again the rights of its employees.

That background can even do little for Lee’s first and most urgent agenda merchandise: coping with President Trump, whose tariffs on South Korean vehicles, metal and aluminum are set to totally go into impact in July.

“I don’t assume Lee and Trump may have good chemistry,” Cho mentioned.

“They each have such sturdy personalities, however they’re so totally different when it comes to political ideology and private upbringing.”