the leftwing firebrand who could be South Korea’s next leader

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A South Korean politician who narrowly escaped being stabbed to death in January is ending 2024 as the clear favourite to be elected as the country’s next leader, after two weeks of political turmoil culminated in the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who was knifed in the neck by an assailant determined to prevent him from ever becoming president, is now the presumptive frontrunner if Yoon is removed from office and a snap election called. On Sunday, he demanded that his Democratic Party of Korea, the largest group in the National Assembly, be given a direct say in government under the caretaker administration while Yoon is suspended.

“The National Assembly and the government need to work together to get through the crisis that has engulfed our country in the past two weeks,” Lee told reporters.

But while his personal approval ratings have leapt in recent weeks, the former factory worker remains a highly polarising figure who is likely to perpetuate South Korea’s decades-long political “revenge cycle”, according to analysts.

“Yoon’s justification for issuing his martial law decree was nonsense,” said Shin Yul, professor of political science at Myongji University in Seoul, referring to the move that precipitated Yoon’s downfall. “But Lee contributed to the severe political conflict that led up to this. Many of those who supported Yoon’s impeachment still don’t want Lee to be president.”

A leftwing firebrand with criminal convictions for drink driving, impersonating a prosecutor and making false statements during an election campaign, Lee has courted controversy throughout his political career.

After being defeated by Yoon by less than a percentage point in 2022, he went on a hunger strike the following year to protest against what he called Yoon’s “prosecutorial dictatorship”, which he blamed for his indictment on a range of criminal charges. Lee has denied all of them.

“Lee’s supporters identify with his hardship,” said Suh Bok-kyung, vice-president of the Korean Association of Electoral Studies. “He was born into a poor family and was not well-educated, but he made it to the top. They feel that he identifies with their difficult lives and would do something to improve their livelihoods.”

To Lee’s supporters, Yoon’s impeachment has vindicated the DPK’s political strategy of pummeling the country’s conservative administration with a barrage of impeachment motions and demands for special counsels to investigate a series of scandals.

In the two and a half years since Yoon was elected, the opposition has submitted 22 impeachment motions targeting senior officials, not including the two to impeach Yoon following his martial law declaration.

They include motions against prosecutors who had indicted Lee on suspicions of channelling funds to North Korea through a South Korean underwear manufacturer, as well as against prosecutors who had decided not to charge Yoon’s wife, first lady Kim Keon Hee, for alleged bribery and stock manipulation.

“He is seen by conservatives as someone who will stop at nothing to root out his enemies,” said a former Yoon administration official, noting that the previous record number of impeachment motions submitted during a South Korean presidency was six, during the five-year term of Yoon’s leftwing predecessor Moon Jae-in.

Advocates for Lee countered that the DPK filed so many motions because the Yoon administration had consistently blocked investigations into several contentious episodes, including the deaths of 159 revellers during a Halloween crowd crush in 2022.

They noted that as president, Yoon had only agreed to meet the opposition leader for the first time 720 days into his term, and only then following parliamentary elections in April during which his People Power party was roundly beaten by the opposition.

“Lee has spent years being stigmatised and portrayed by conservatives as a serious criminal,” said Suh. “They fear him becoming president because of what they have already done to him.”

Now, Lee appears to be wielding the threat of impeachment against South Korea’s caretaker administration, promising not to seek “for now” the removal of acting president Han Duck-soo, a Yoon appointee and career technocrat, as long as Han governs in the spirit of “political neutrality”.

Lee has also called on South Korea’s Constitutional Court, which has six months to decide whether to approve Yoon’s permanent removal from office, to make a “swift” decision to “minimise the country’s chaos”.

Shin noted that Lee’s trial for his alleged role in the North Korea funds scheme is set to begin early next year, meaning he faces a race against time to secure the presidency before he is barred from office in the event of a conviction.

“If the Constitutional Court can reach a verdict before May, it will boost his chances of becoming the next president,” said Shin.

Should he weather his legal issues, analysts said they saw little prospect of a conservative candidate, or an alternative leftwing candidate, defeating Lee in an election following Yoon’s removal.

That means South Korea’s turbulent politics are unlikely to settle down in the coming years, said Suh, even after the sobering events of the past two weeks. “This revenge cycle will continue into the next administration.”