Lee Jae Myung

Lee Jae Myung (Korean: 이재명; pronounced [i.dʑɛ.mjʌŋ]; born c. 8 December 1963) is a South Korean politician and lawyer who is serving as the 14th President of South Korea since 2025. A member of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), he held office as the party's leader from 2022 to 2025 and represented Gyeyang B in the National Assembly from 2022 to 2025. Lee previously served as Governor of Gyeonggi Province from 2018 to 2021.

Born into a poor family in Andong, Lee began working at a Seongnam factory at an early age, where an accident left him disabled, instead of attending middle school. He earned middle and high school equivalency diplomas and graduated from Chung-Ang University with a law degree in 1986. As a human rights and labor lawyer, Lee worked with Minbyun to organize efforts advocating for opening a new hospital in Seongnam.

Lee entered politics in 2005 and ran in several elections without success. He was elected mayor of Seongnam in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. In 2017, he sought the DPK's presidential nomination but lost to Moon Jae-in. Lee resigned as mayor in 2018 to run for governor of Gyeonggi Province, won that race, and served until 2021. In 2022, he won his party's presidential nomination and narrowly lost the general election to Yoon Suk Yeol of the People Power Party (PPP).

Lee survived an assassination attempt in January 2024. In November, he was convicted under the Public Official Election Act for falsely denying a connection to Kim Moon-ki, a former Seongnam Development Corporation executive, during his 2022 presidential campaign. During the 2024 martial law crisis, Lee drew international attention by climbing over the National Assembly building fence and livestreaming the event. He then helped lead the impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol. After the Constitutional Court of Korea removed Yoon from office, Lee launched a third presidential bid in 2025, won the DPK nomination, and defeated the PPP candidate Kim Moon-soo in the presidential election.

Early life

Lee was born in Andong, South Korea as the fifth of seven children. His birth likely occurred around 8 December 1963 (the 22nd or 23rd day of the 10th month in the Korean lunisolar calendar), but because his father registered it late, his official birth date was recorded as 22 December 1964.

Lee grew up in poverty and often missed social activities because his family lacked the funds, relying on school faculty's support to join field trips and community events. He cited fishing along the creek with friends as one of his favorite pastimes.

His first-grade report card described him as stubborn, noted that his grades were average, and said he got along well with his classmates. After elementary school – when middle and high school were not publicly funded – his father's gambling losses had exhausted his family's savings, and they left Andong to find work.

Child factory worker

Lee's family moved to Seongnam, a planned industrial city created under President Park Chung Hee to move industry out of Seoul. Seongnam was largely populated by poor people who were forced to relocate there by the government.

Like other children from poor families, Lee worked in a handmade necklace factory instead of attending middle school. When the necklace factory went bankrupt, he found work at Dongma Rubber. Because he was underage, he worked under various aliases. While working there, Lee injured his finger.

After the first accident, Lee left Dongma Rubber and worked for Daeyang Industry. There, an industrial press crushed his wrist joint in a second injury. The wound went untreated and resulted in a permanent arm disability. He was later exempted from military service and is officially registered as a disabled person.

While working at Daeyang Industry, Lee saw students in school uniform and decided to pursue higher education. He enrolled in private classes to prepare for equivalency exams. In 1978, he passed the middle school equivalency exam and earned his middle school diploma. In 1981, he passed the high school equivalency exam and obtained his high school diploma.

Lee has stated his own experience with severe poverty inspired his political philosophy of "suppressing the strong, helping the weak" (억강부약; 抑強扶弱; Eokgang Buyak), which seeks to curb the privileges and excesses of the powerful and support society's poorest members.

Civil rights attorney

Based on his entrance examination scores, Lee was accepted into Chung-Ang University's College of Law on a scholarship. In 1986, upon graduating from college, he passed the bar exam and entered the Judicial Research and Training Institute for two years in order to join the bar. Lee opposed the authoritarian regime of Chun Doo-hwan. Lee originally intended to become a judge or prosecutor for the prestige and pay, but he was inspired by a lecture from Roh Moo-hyun to become a human rights and labour lawyer, like Roh and Moon Jae-in. He set up his practice in Seongnam.

After opening his own lawyer's office, Lee organized for labour and human rights with the lawyers' organization Minbyun, working with the heads of labour counselling centers in Incheon and Gwangju. In 1995, he started a civic movement as a founding member of the 'Seongnam Citizens' Association'. He gained fame as a lawyer and social activist in relation to the "Park View" preferential sale case, where an investigation suggested corruption in the awarding of building permits and preferential sales of property in Bundang to government officials.

In the early 2000s, two general hospitals in Seongnam closed, and Lee started a movement to build a new municipal hospital. The city council, which was then controlled by the Grand National Party, rejected the residents' initiative ordinance in just 47 seconds. Lee's group protested the council, and Lee was wanted for obstructing official duties of a public official. Afterwards, he realized that he could not change society through social movements, and he decided to enter politics.

Marriage

Lee is married to Kim Hea Kyung since 1991; the two first met in August 1990. They have two children together.

Early political career

On 23 August 2005, Lee joined the then-ruling Uri Party, a predecessor of the Democratic Party of Korea, and declared his candidacy for mayor of Seongnam. He ran as a candidate in the 2006 local elections, but was defeated by 23.75% of the vote due to poor public opinion about the Uri Party and the Roh administration at the time. He graduated from Kyungwon University, later part of Gachon University, with a Master of Public Administration degree in 2005.

In the 2007 presidential election, Lee served as the senior deputy chief of the Office of the Presidential Candidate Chung Dong-young of the Grand Unified Democratic New Party. In the 2008 general election, he applied for a nomination in the constituency of Seongnam Jungwon A, but was defeated by Cho Sung-jun in the primary election, and was nominated in the Seongnam Bundang A constituency. However, Lee suffered from another defeat with 33% of the votes under difficult circumstances, as the constituency was a traditional stronghold of an opposing party who had just won the Presidential election under Lee Myung-bak.

After the 2008 election, Lee served as the Democratic Party's deputy spokesperson at the request of the Democratic Party's leader Chung Sye-kyun.

Mayor of Seongnam (2010–2018)

He ran for the mayoralty of Seongnam in the 2010 South Korean local elections under the Democratic Party, and won with 51.16% of the vote against Hwang Jun-gi.

In his inaugural speech as the 19th mayor of Seongnam, he stated "It will not be easy to take a new step in Seongnam. If it's hard, let's take a break. Let's take care of each other's shoulders and smile, step by step. We can do it. Let's emphasize Seongnam, where citizens are the leaders, citizens are happy, and our Seongnam, where opportunities are equal." He started by moving the mayor's office to a narrower space after allowing the former mayor's office, which caused controversy over its luxury, to become a book cafe.

He also declared a moratorium on spending and debt repayment in his first press conference, due to the city being in large debt (though the debt has never been actively collected on). The first of this was the 520 billion won owed to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport over the construction of the Pangyo project; he thereafter attempted to renegotiate the debt owed, and paid it off with a large amount of municipal bonds. He also attracted attention due to his active use of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, often expressing his views on national issues bluntly on the two services. A particular stunt involving him installing CCTV in the mayoral office gained fame, with him claiming that "many people were bringing in money envelopes."