(News Focus) Hard-bitten and pragmatic, Lee stages ultimate comeback with presidential election win

President-elect Lee Jae-myung has been known to be a fighter, overcoming crisis after crisis in both his professional and personal lives while appearing cool and focused on the singular goal of winning the presidency regardless of what it takes.

Lee, 61, has had a dominant presence in the political scene since 2022, when he lost the presidential election to Yoon Suk Yeol by a razor-thin margin of 0.73 percentage point. Before that, he was known as the mayor of Seongnam and then the governor of Gyeonggi Province.

Since 2022, he has been elected a National Assembly member for Incheon’s Gyeyang-B district and served two consecutive terms as leader of the liberal Democratic Party while surviving parliament’s approval of an arrest motion against him, a knife attack to his neck and a conviction for violating the election law.

Despite standing five trials on 12 charges — all of which are still under way — and being accused without evidence of playing a role in the deaths of at least five people connected to his trials, Lee amassed a large following in and outside of politics.

His female fans were called “gaettal,” short for “daughters of reform,” while groups of confidants formed based on different periods of his life, such as his university alumni, aides during his times as mayor and governor, and lawmakers from both before and after his time as party leader.

In his own party, his standing went from a fringe politician sidelined by those aligned with former President Moon Jae-in to an unrivaled presidential contender whose status was affirmed by the nickname “eodaemyeong” — short for “The president will be Lee Jae-myung anyway.”

But Lee’s rise to the nation’s top political office was sealed when Yoon made a surprise declaration of martial law on Dec. 3.

While livestreaming himself on YouTube, Lee rushed to the National Assembly that night and called on citizens to help him “defend the nation.”

In the face of a police blockade, he climbed over the walls of the National Assembly compound and livestreamed that too, collecting 2.4 million views at the time.

The dramatic events that followed from the National Assembly’s revocation of martial law to its impeachment of Yoon and his eventual removal from office provided Lee with a rallying cry: the election would be a judgment on the “insurrection forces” of the former president.

Lee’s first foray into politics came in 2006, when he ran for mayor of Seongnam, a city just south of Seoul. He lost that election but won in his second attempt in 2010 and was reelected four years later.

During his mayoralty, Lee aggressively pushed a raft of welfare programs despite opposition from the central government, including a universal basic income for young people, free school uniforms and free postnatal care.

Universal basic income became one of his signature policies.

In 2017, Lee ran in the presidential primaries but finished third overall. The next year he was voted in as the first liberal governor of Gyeonggi in 16 years and built up his profile as a future presidential candidate.

In his second attempt at the presidency in 2021, he won his party’s nomination but lost the election to Yoon.

Shortly afterward he headed the party’s election committee for the June 2022 local elections and simultaneously ran for a parliamentary seat in Incheon. The party lost the elections, but he won the seat, sparking criticism from dissenters within the party that his aim was to leverage parliamentary immunity from prosecution to shield him from his corruption trials.

Still, the party elected him as its leader two months later. Under his leadership, the party won a landslide victory in the April 2024 general elections.

The trials were a constant source of trouble as a finalized conviction for past election law violations would have cost Lee his chance to run for public office for at least five years.

During this election cycle, however, some of Lee’s most controversial remarks were on the economy.

His “hotel economics” theory was widely ridiculed for being unrealistic as it claimed that a hotel customer who pays a 100,000 won (US$73) reservation fee and later takes it back after canceling the reservation would still help the economy.

In another instance, Lee drew the ire of small business owners after claiming that a cup of coffee costs 120 won to make but sells for 8,000 won to 10,000 won.

Lee is married to Kim Hye-kyung, a piano major, and the couple has two sons.

He was born into dire poverty in the southeastern city of Andong, the fifth of seven children.

After his family relocated to Seongnam when he was 12, Lee worked at various factories where he damaged his sense of smell and an arm.

Lee got into high school and college via qualification exams as he was unable to go to school during the day.

He studied law at Chung-Ang University on a scholarship and passed the bar in 1986.

Before entering politics, Lee worked as a human rights lawyer.