Who Li Jay-Min, presidential hope of South Korea

By the events of December 3, 2024, the Way of the Li Jo -Mein -Mein to the South Korean presidency was littered with obstacles.

Constant court cases, corruption investigation and allegations of abuse of power looked to disrupt the second presidential application for the former opposition leader.

Then the constitutional crisis changed everything.

That night, the simultaneous attempt of former President Jonah Suka Yola to turn to martial law, leading to motion a number of events that appear to have cleared the way to Lee.

Now, as a Democratic candidate, he is the leader who won the South Korea elections on June 3.

This is a dramatic cancellation of success for the age of 61, which at the time of the Declaration of Military Legislation, called the convicted person for making false statements during the last presidential campaign in 2022.

These accusations still threw a long shadow over Lee, and yet they may threaten his long-standing pursuit of higher work. But they are also only the latest in a number of disputes that have made it throughout his political career.

The history of the origin of the rag to wealth, combined with the bullish political style, turned Lee into a dividing figure in South Korea.

“Life Lee Johin was full of ups and falls, and it often takes actions that arouse disputes,” says Dr. Lee Zhong-Khan, Professor of Political Science and International Studies of the Inchhone National University, BBC.

Usually, these actions include attempts of progressive reform – for example, a key to the 2022 presidential campaign to implement the universal scheme of basic income – challenging the existing power structure and the status of South Korea.

“Of this, some people strongly support it, while others are unanswered or disliked,” says D -Ri Lee. “He is a very controversial and unconventional figure – a very outsider who created his name in such a way that he does not meet the traditional norms of the Democratic Party.”

In a recent memoir, Lee called his childhood “unhappy”. Born in 1963 in the mountain village in Andon, Gunbuk province, he was the fifth of five sons and two daughters, and – from the difficult circumstances of his family – he missed high school to enter into labor illegally.

Like a young plant worker, Lee was injured when his fingers hit the factory belt, and at the age of 13 suffered a permanent injury after his wrist was crushed by the press.

Later, Lee applied and allowed him to pass the exams at high school and university, passing in 1978 and 1980, respectively. He continued to study the law with a full scholarship and passed the Board in 1986.

In 1992, he married his wife Kim Her Kun, with whom he had two children.

He worked as a human rights lawyer for almost two decades before the entry into politics in 2005, joining the Social Liberal Party URI, the Democratic Democratic Party and the ruling party at the time.

While his poor upbringing attracted contempt for South Korea members, Lee’s success in the construction of his political career brought him support from the voters of the working class and those who feel deprived of the political elite.

In 2010, he was elected mayor of the seanman, deploying a number of free welfare politicians during his stay, and in 2018 became the governor of the Gugga West province.

Lee would go to recognition for the response to the COVID-19 pandemia, during which he collided with the Central Government because of his insisting universal grants for all the residents of the province.

At this time, Lee first became the final presidential candidate in October 2021 – losing 0.76 percentage points. Less than a year later, in August 2022, he was elected leader of the party.

From now on, Dr. Lee says, Lee has gained a controversial, firing and cliffs for which he became sadly known-erasing to play safety and maintain a low profile.

“After the term (Lee) as the governor, his reform image went somewhat when he focused more on his presidential ambitions,” he says. “However, on certain issues – for example, an appeal to the past rules (in the Japanese colonial era), well -being and corruption – he created a devoted and hot support base, taking a firm and uncompromising position.”

Such an uncompromising attitude has its ill -wisdom, and many members and supporters of the ruling party Power (PPP) consider Lee as aggressive and abrasive in their approach.

Lee’s political career was also marred by a series of scandals – including incidents on drink management in 2004, disputes with relatives at the end of 2010 and allegations in an illegitimate case that arose in 2018.

While in other parts of the world voters, there were apologies and even support for contradictory politicians in South Korea – a country that is still relatively conservative in what expects public figures – such scandals did not usually play well.

In recent years, the political ambitions have been developed by even more extraordinary disputes – including current court cases that continue to hang over it, threatening the hips if they do not scatter their chances in the elections.

One of these concerned with a number of high -profile fees, including corruption, bribery and confidence violation, is related to the Earth Development Project in 2023.

Another, perhaps, is a more critical legal battle concerning the allegations that Lee made a deliberately false statement during the debate in the last presidential campaign.

During the discussion, which aired on South Korean television in December 2021, he denied personally, knowing who Moon-ki, a key figure in a corruption scandal that took her own life just a few days earlier.

Prosecutors claim that the lawsuit was false, violating the law on state official elections, and in November 2024 was convicted of accusation of false statements and issued an annual conditional term.

Then, in March, the Court of Appeal released him from the charges – only to be canceled by the South Korea’s Supreme Court. At the time of writing, the case is still waiting for the verdict.

Other threats against future political ambitions are a more deadly danger.

In January 2024, answering questions from journalists outside the construction site of the planned airport in Pusan, Lee was stabbed in his neck, who asked him for an autograph.

The trauma of the jugular vein of Lee, although it requires a broad operation, was not critical – but now he campaigning behind a bullet glass, wearing a bullet vest, surrounded by agents carrying ballistic short bones.

He attacked the manifesto of eight pages and wanted to make sure Lee never became president, later sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The attack caused concern about deepening political polarization in South Korea – perhaps most publicly in the bitter rival between Lee and Yon, and more privately in the country’s increasingly extreme internet.

In December 2023, a few weeks before Lee’s attack, a poll conducted by Hankeeore’s newspaper found that more than 50% of respondents said they felt that the political gap of South Korea.

Some claim that, as the leader of the Democratic Party, Lee played a major role in nourishing the problem, often blocking the Yuno Government and effectively presenting him a lame president.

Such a permanent stone pull on the part of the Democratic Party only strengthened the fight of the Yun’s leadership – which also included attempts to impeach against the administration officials and the constant counteraction to its budget.

Finally, when the pressure on it was imposed, the former president made a sharp step in martial law.

Yoon martial law on December 3 – Made in a self -proclaimed application for the elimination of “anti -state forces”, and the northern sympathizers – the catalyst to become a leading presidential candidate.

Within hours after the Declaration, Lee appealed to the public through broadcasting and urged them to gather in protest outside the National Assembly building in Central Seoul.

Thousands answered, faced with the police and blocking military units when the opposition legislators rushed into the build building, moving over the fences and walls, in a desperate attempt to block the young order.

Among them was Lee, rising through the fence to enter the National Assembly and helped to adopt a resolution to abolish martial law.

Later, the Democratic Party decided on the impeachment of President Yuna – a decision that was unanimously supported by the Constitutional Court of South Korea on April 4, 2025.

It was then that Lee began his way to a full -fledged election application, announcing his resignation as a Democratic leader on April 9 on the eve of his presidential run. In the presidential presidential party of the Democratic Party, which took place on April 27, he was elected as a general candidate with overwhelming support.

The result of the martial law attempts was the political whirlpool, from which South Korea is still worried: the constitutional crisis, which ended the career of the former president and left his PPP in the Tatra.

But the few who managed to use this chaos to their advantage did not benefit more than Lee.

Now a contradictory presidential candidate is awaiting sentence of his political future – not only from the South Korean people, but also the courts.

If his guilty ruling is eventually confirmed, Lee is likely to lose his place in the National Assembly. As a candidate, it would allow him to run for the president for five years.

But if the courts, which have now approved the request to postpone their legal hearings, while there was another opportunity after the election: Lee, which remains the election favorite, can be sentenced after the victory in the presidency.

And this may mean that South Korea, just surviving the many months of political shocks, cannot yet be done with its leadership.