South Korea presidential frontrunner faces assassination plot

Lee Jae-myung is campaigning in a bulletproof vest after reports that hit squads for backers of impeached president Yoon Suk-yeol are plotting to kill him before a snap election.

Lee Jae-myung is campaigning in a bulletproof vest. Picture: AP.

The favourite to be South Korea’s next president is campaigning in a bulletproof vest after reports that hit squads are plotting to kill him before a snap election next month.

Lee Jae-myung, the opposition Democratic Party candidate, survived one assassination attempt last year, when a man posing as a supporter stabbed him in the neck with a seven-inch kitchen knife.

Now his supporters have said there is a more serious plot to kill him by backers of the former president Yoon Suk-yeol, who was impeached last month after an attempt to impose martial law.

Political violence is rare in South Korea and guns are strictly controlled, but staff from Lee’s campaign had considered surrounding him with bulletproof glass for public appearances, after “credible threats”.

A senior Democratic Party official, Cho Seung-rae, told reporters that a “counter-terrorism response team” had been created by the party. “If I talk only of messages that I have received, there are credible reports that Russian rifles have been brought in [to South Korea],” he said.

He hinted at plotting by “internal rebellion forces” and shadowy military-affiliated supporters of Yoon.

Kim Byung-joo, another senior party official and a former general, warned of “standing orders” allegedly given by Yoon and his supporters to capture or eliminate those likely to oppose the abortive martial law declaration last December. “Not only were capture squads deployed, but it’s possible they were issued to groups of former special agents,” Kim said. “Without being rescinded, those orders remain valid.”

Police are investigating at least six online posts threatening Lee. Officers said that one person had been sent for prosecution – a man who posted on Facebook on Sunday that he was “recruiting an assassination squad for Lee Jae-myung”. After his arrest, he told police that it was a joke.

The idea of a deadly establishment “rebellion” against the supporters of democracy and freedom fits in with Lee’s campaign message. He was narrowly defeated by Yoon in the 2022 presidential election and the disastrously misjudged martial law declaration, which was voted down by the National Assembly, has propelled him back into contention.

Lee said on Monday: “Society is now so fractured that a presidential candidate must campaign in a bulletproof vest.”

His candidacy was thrown into doubt this month after the supreme court ordered a lower court to reconsider criminal charges. If he is convicted of lying during the previous election campaign, he will be barred from running for office for five years.

The Times