He’s survived slums, sweatshops and a stabbing. Now this leader has to survive Donald Trump

Singapore: South Korea’s new president Lee Jae-myung took the reins at 6.21am on Wednesday, just hours after voters handed him a decisive victory in a snap election, and a mandate to slam the door shut on the country’s authoritarian past once and for all.

It’s a door his impeached predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol yanked open in December, when he declared martial law in frustration over a domestic political deadlock in the national parliament and plunged the country into its worst political crisis in decades.

Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party and his wife Kim Hea-kyung celebrate in front of the National Assembly.Credit: AP

The toughest external challenges awaiting the new president are US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy and North Korea’s advancing nuclear program. But experts say any leader can’t do much to secure major progress for South Korea on those issues.

For Lee, the leader of the left-leaning Democratic Party, it marks the culmination of an extraordinary rise from the slums of outer Seoul, where he worked in factory sweatshops as a teenager and nearly lost his hand in an industrial accident, before becoming a human rights lawyer and then a politician.

Last year, while opposition leader, he survived a political assassination attempt after he was stabbed in the neck by a man who approached him for an autograph.

His victory comes without a honeymoon and the usual 60-day transition period that follows a regular presidential election. Instead, due to an expedited process following Yoon’s formal removal from office in April, Lee will face the immediate challenge of uniting a deeply polarised public after months of turmoil that spilt into the streets of Seoul.

Members of the People Power Party react as they watch a television report on exit polls for South Korea’s presidential election.Credit: Getty Images

At the same time, he will confront a stumbling economy that is under further pressure from the Trump administration’s tariffs.

In addition to a baseline tariff of 10 per cent, South Korea’s auto sector, one of the country’s top industries, is facing 25 per cent tariffs on vehicles and parts, and a 50 per cent tariff on aluminum and steel.

“This, in many ways, is existential for Korea,” Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said in an analysis for the think tank.

“We’ve been in this period for six months when the Trump administration has been moving 100 miles an hour, and South Korea has basically been stuck in neutral because they haven’t had a government.”

Supporters of Lee Jae-myung celebrate during the vote count near the National Assembly in Seoul.Credit: Bloomberg

On foreign policy, Lee has positioned himself as a centrist who has championed the US alliance as the backbone of the country’s national security, but has also spurned being forced to choose sides in the intensifying US-China rivalry. He also favours dialogue with the South’s longstanding nemesis in North Korea as the key to sustaining peace on the peninsula.

It marks a sharp break with Yoon, who had aligned the country more stridently with the US and adopted a confrontation posture with Pyongyang.

“Trilateral cooperation among Korea, the US and Japan is also important. But we cannot be unilaterally bound to those alone … we should also maintain amicable relations with China and Russia – trade with them, and cooperate with them,” Lee said during the campaign.

It’s a view that will rankle with foreign policy hawks in the Trump administration, which is considering withdrawing 4500 troops from South Korea and relocating them to the Indo-Pacific, which it sees as the critical arena for countering China.

Lee takes office having what his predecessor sorely lacked – a huge majority of seats in the National Assembly to pass his government’s legislative agenda. He secured 49.42 per cent of the vote, putting him eight percentage points clear of his conservative rival Kim Moon-soo (41.15 per cent) and Yoon’s successor at the People Power Party.

The election was a testament to the resilience of South Korea’s democracy, with voter turnout hitting almost 80 per cent – the highest in nearly three decades – facilitating a peaceful transfer of power that many will hope draws the line under the chaos of past six months.

For weeks on end, tens of thousands of people rallied in the streets in protests that divided them sharply along generational and gender lines, in the lead up to a sensational storming of the presidential residence by police in February and Yoon’s arrest – the first time a sitting president has been arrested in the nation’s history.

But there are early questions about how Lee, who called the election a “judgement day” against his opponent and the People Power Party, will seek to enforce his pledge to “recover democracy for the country” in a political system that has a long track record of leaders exacting revenge on rivals.

Lee himself is a divisive figure. He has been facing a raft of criminal trials, including charges of election law violations stemming from the 2022 presidential campaign, accusations he denies. These charges will dog his presidency, but it is possible he will be shielded from those process during his five-year term due to presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.

South Korea’s presidents have historically faced a torrid fate. Since 1980, two presidents have been impeached, four have been convicted on criminal charges after leaving office, and another killed himself while under criminal investigation.

Weighed down by his own legal baggage, Lee will be watching his back as he tries to lead his country forward out of the chaos.

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