Just before 11 PM On December 3, the Korean legislator Lee Jae-Myung issued a terrible warning from a moving car. “My fellow men people, you have to go out in the National Assembly,” he said in a live flow from his phone. The video showed Lee in a dark costume and a royal blue tie, the color of his Democratic party. He looked tired and frightened. “Our democracy collapses,” he said. “Please come together to protect him.”
The president of the nation, Yoon Suk-Yeol, who was a prosecutor before being prepared for leadership by the People Power Party, had spent the last years of turning state machinery against political opponents, unions and journalists who criticized him. Now he had declared martial law and sent troops to enclose the parliamentary complex. But Lee and his allies hoped that they could prevail: due to the recent history of the military dictatorship of South Korea, its constitution allows the legislature to force the orders of martial law. The night when Lee launched his appeal, thousands of citizens presented themselves to the National Assembly. They helped the legislators of the Democratic Party, and even a few conservatives, generally aligned with Yoon, make their way in front of the soldiers and enter the building to vote in order. This was a rare case of copying through the lines of the parties in extreme circumstances – and, at the time, I supported a model for the fight against authoritarianism elsewhere.
Many things have since happened. From December to April, there were ecstatic daily demonstrations, demanding that Yoon be ousted. These were followed by the dismissal of Yoon by the National Assembly, his criminal act, his official dismissal by the Constitutional Court – and, this Tuesday, an early election to replace it. In the 2022 presidential election, Lee lost Yoon of less than one percent. This time, he won more than eight points. It will be inaugurated on Wednesday, starting a five -year term.
Lee is sixty -one years old, a scraper with a new background frame. He grew up in poverty, in the eastern part of the country, and obtained a job instead of frequenting college; His left arm was then crushed in a factory accident, having him flowing at the elbow. He has become a lawyer for human rights, mayor and governor in the most populous province in Korea. He pushed redistribution policies, including universal basic income, while sticking to the dominant democratic current. It is a pro-development and pro-welfare state, faithful to the United States but respectively independent. Last year, he survived an assassination attempt during a public appearance: a man in the sixties, posing as a supporter and wearing a paper crown which said “I am Lee Jae-Myung”, plunged a knife into his neck. The striker had written a screed saying that he intended to save Korea from “left forces”.
Lee has been involved in many controversies. At the start of the two thousand, he turned out to have distorted as a prosecutor to help a journalist investigate a mayor suspected of corruption; He was accused of having an extramarital affair; Her son would have published misogynist comments online. He faced multiple prosecutions, including one for having lied about his relationship with a real estate developer during an electoral debate, in 2021. (Korea strictly regulates the speech linked to the elections; this case was on appeal and is pending.) The episodes caused criticisms which were often taken from the classist disdain; The conservatives described Lee as a “little criminal” who swims in “dirty waters”. But a liberal friend also surprised me by staring at him as “dangerous” and “too messy” to lead the country. The far -right and evangelical groups targeted him for his opinions, calling him “Pinko Commie” and organizing campaigns to dirty it online.
During the recent elections, Lee’s main rival was Kim Moon-Soo, a former Labor Minister who served as an agent of Yoon. Kim is not a dynamic presence, but he confirmed the party line. In one of the three debates, he called Lee the “most corrupt official in the government” in the country. He argued that Yoon had been pushed to declare martial law because Lee and the rest of the Democratic Party had repeatedly blocked legislation in the National Assembly. The People Power Party has minimized the attempt at self-group as an idiotic miss. “There was a quick action to raise martial law, and it was lifted, right?” Kim said in the final debate.
I have traveled in Korea in the days preceding the elections. In Cheonan, one of Kim’s campaign trucks raised music, while a substitute has shouted slogans through a muffled sound system. In Namyangju, a city in the province where Lee was governor, the banners read: “A vote in this election is a victory for the people” and “Throw your vote to stop betrayal!” The first Seoul voters took selfies outside a polling station; There were long lines and a lot of buzz, mainly in favor of Lee.
Almost eighty percent of eligible voters turned out – the election day was a national holiday, but during the polls I visited, the mood was moderate. I continued to think of two other recent elections. The first was the election of Korean snap in 2017, to replace President Park Geun-Hye. Its contours were almost identical to that of this year: misconduct by a conservative president, months of mass demonstrations, dismissal, moving, criminal proceedings and the election of a liberal replacement – the Moon Jae -in, who, like Lee, had been a human rights lawyer. The second was the American election of 2020, which Joe Biden formulated as a plebiscite on a dangerously venal leader, who came just after the Black Lives Matter demonstrations of this year, the biggest in American history. Moon and Biden campaigned on whom they were not—PreSent occur as antidotes or fixes – while promising not to forget the social movements that brought them to power. The two ended up having trouble maintaining their country together, not to mention the changes that their supporters of activists had hoped to see.
What will resistance come from Yoon? The movement – large, diversified and energetic – was largely supported by young women, who agitated “Yoon’s implementation” panels to the rhythm of K -Pop and batons conducted in an adapted flashing, spectators’ accessories, to avoid a potential autocrat. Yoon had made women a basic principle. As a candidate and as president, he had obtained the abolition of the South Korea ministry in South Korea and suggested that feminism was the cause of many social ills, such as too expensive housing, underemployment in young men and a record rate of fertility. He surrounded himself with military generals. In a different world, the Democratic Party would have chosen a woman – perhaps a member of the National Assembly, who is approximately a fifth woman – to present himself to the presidency to succeed Yoon, putting pressure for an omnibus anti -discrimination law which was a lasting objective of women and minority groups.
Instead, Lee largely avoided gender issues during the campaign and made no particular appeal to the workers’ movement or the poor, the constituencies he had previously courted. Determined not to alienate all the supporters of Yoon, he was called “real conservative” – as distinct from the radicals who would institute martial law. However, while the polls showed him taking a comfortable lead, Lee began to look more like his old self. “Do you know why they are against Lee Jae-Myung?” He said to a crowd of Cheongju last weekend, referring to himself in the third person. “It is because Lee Jae-Myung is on the outskirts. It is on the side of small and medium -sized enterprises, not large companies. He stands with the poor and the working class. ”
