Campaigning party leader attacked with hammer

The campaign to become South Korea’s president has been marred by violence, with the head of the ruling party taken to hospital after being attacked with a hammer.

Song Young-gil, head of the Democratic Party of Korea, was campaigning on behalf of Lee Jae-myung (pictured) when he was attacked. Picture: AFP

The campaign to become South Korea’s president has been marred by violence, with the head of the ruling party taken to hospital after being attacked with a hammer.

Song Young-gil, head of the Democratic Party of Korea, was campaigning on behalf of Lee Jae-myung when a man, wearing a floral gown and holding a hammer wrapped in black plastic, launched his assault.

The assailant, described by local media as a 70-year-old YouTuber, was immediately arrested. Mr Song was taken to hospital where he received stitches. The motive for the attack was not clear but according to a witness the man could be heard shouting his opposition to military exercises between South Korea and the US.

The incident, two days before the election, crowns a close-run campaign that has been marked by rancour, mutual recrimin­ations and personal invective between the two leading candidates.

Polls had suggested they were neck and neck but in the past few days the race appears to have swung to the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol, after the candidate polling in third, Ahn Cheol-soo, of the centre-right People Party, withdrew last week and urged his supporters to back Mr Yoon.

The Times