The two candidates who will fight to win elections such as the next president of South Korea exaggerate great chances of reaching where they are. Lee Jae-Myung was a teenage worker from the sweat store whose family survived with rotten fruit. Kim Moon-Sooo was imprisoned and tortured for anti-government activism. Both survived a week of political and legal turbulence that threatened to fly their presidential offer.
Now, as the official campaign for the June 3 survey begins on Monday, Mr. Lee and Mr. Kim have emerged as two main contenders. They represented the opposite sides of a political division that is unlikely to walk through a bridge, only although both have promised to pursue the national unit if they are chosen.
The election follows the removal last month of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was promoted by his short duration of placing South Korea under martial law. As such, the campaign is getting less free about policies and more as a referendum about Mr. Yoon and his power party of the right -wing people.
The part has not cut the ties with Mr. Yoon, who faces a trial for insurrection charges. Instead, he has diverted to the right by choosing Mr. Kim, former Minister of Labor of Mr. Yoon, as his presidential candidate. When the members of Mr. Yoon’s cabinet were asked a parliamentary session in December to apologize for the imposition of martial law, Mr. Kim was the only one who refused to stand and bow.
Its main rival, Mr. Lee, 60, has led in pre -electoral surveys. After winning their presidential nomination of Democratic parties with 89.77 percent unprecedented to the votes, he said: “They order me to end the ancient era of insurrection and regression and open a new era of hope.”
Both Mr. Lee and Mr. Kim, 73, had to clear the minute obstacles to apply for president, which adds to the uncertainty that has impregnated South Korea’s policy in recent months.
A criminal position for violations of the electoral law against Mr. Lee, who denies, threatened his elegicity until a Seoul court postponed a ruling on the case until after the elections.
On the opposite side, Mr. Kim won a primary career only to see that the leadership of People Power Party canceled his candidacy, moving to replace him with former prime minister and interim president have Duck-Soo, who, according to them, had a better opportunity. Leeward. Mr. Kim Tok legal action against the leaders of their own parties, calling them “monsters” and accusing them of a “political blow.”
But during the weekend, party members voted to restore Mr. Kim’s candidacy, and Mr. have left the race.
Mr. Kim struggled to cure his torn party, invoking the same fear and right -wing that led Mr. Yoon to send military troops to the National Assembly controlled by the Democrats to try to impose martial law.
Mr. Kim warned that if Mr. Lee won the presidency, with his party with a majority in Parliament, he would become a leftist giant and make South Korea more friendly with China and North Korea at the expense of his alliance with the United States.
“He is already a dictator,” said Mr. Kim, comparing Mr. Lee with the leaders of North Korea and China. “Who receives 89.77 percent of your support support that is not Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping?”
The June election is an extension of the political struggle unleashed by Mr. Yoon’s martial law.
“For the progressives, ending insurrection is the dominant issue in the elections,” said Sung Duk Hahm, a political scientist from the University of Kyonggi. “But fear is driving conservatives who fail that if you read Jae-Myung, it would be elected, it would become a super imperial president and devastate their ranks.”
Leaving poverty
Mr. Lee’s life story resonates with many in South Korea. When he was a teenager, his eight-eight family moved to a semi-supplant cabin of a room in a poor neighborhood south of Seoul. His parents earned a living collecting garbage and cleaning public baths. After primary school, he went to work in a baseball gloves and other exploitation workshops. His left arm was permanently deformed when he was crushed in a press machine.
“When I saw the girls go to school as they pushed my father’s dirty car, I had dinner so ash that I hid behind a corner,” Lee said. “But my miserable life has given me the strength to advance the difficulties.”
Allle who never attended the secondary or secondary school, Mr. Lee approved the entrance exams to the university. He became a human rights lawyer, mayor, provincial governor, legislator, head of the greatest political party of South Korea and twice his presidential candidate. He has survived an attempt at his life, as well as criminal charges that almost derailed his political career.
When he was mayor, Mr. Lee tested free school uniforms and a free postpartum care service. As governor, the delivery of cash bonds to help young people find jobs or pay registration. He was the first governor in distributing pandemic relief to all residents.
I also had an aggressive side. Duration The pandemic, its populated province of Gyeonggi, imposed strict social distancing steps that were later adopted by the central government. He also cleaned the scenic valleys driving illegal restaurants.
While Mr. Lee runs for president for the second time (he lost his first commitment to Mr. Yoon in 2022), he has tried to expand his appeal between voters in the environment promising not seeking political revenge and working for the national unity. He emphasized efficiency and pragmatism about ideology.
“A cat is a good cat whenever it catches the mice well,” he said.
To counteract the accusations of the conservatives that it was “Pro-China and Anti-American”, Lee has emphasized the importance of their country’s alliance with Washington and trilateral cooperation with the United States and Japan for regional security.
A progressive became conservative
But his conservative enemies remain unvolved, calling him a ruthless “populist”. Mr. Kim is taking advantage of such doubts against the favorite of the elections to gather conservative support. He has tasks of a long journey in Zigzagging to achieve the position he is in.
Mr. Kim was a famous progressive activist in the seventies and seventy years. He was expelled twice from the National University of Seoul for his anti -government activism. He led a wave of student activists who disguised workers to build unions. And he refused to give the whereabouts of other activists in the race, even the torture of military agents. The labor movement that helped to found is still a powerful left -wing political force.
But Mr. Kim was also a rebel.
While many former activists became members of the Democratic Party in the 1990s after the democratization of the country, Kim joined the conservative field, becoming a provincial legislator and governor. Since then, he said that cools his “revolutionist” and “anti -American” opinions after observing the collapse of the Soviet block.
But he suffered a series of electoral defeats in the last decade. He was mainly known for the extreme right-wing comments, once a former Korean pro-Nordo called himself “executed”-he called a liberal president-executed “- Before Mr. Yoon chose him as his Minister of Labor last year.
Mr. Kim called Mr. Yoon’s martial law. But he also blamed the obstructive tactics of the left opposition in the Parliament for leading Mr. Yoon to the extreme measure. If he was chosen, he said he would make South Korea a more reliable whole for Washington and increase the deterrence against North Korea. He said he would also work for national harmony.
“If you look at the trajectory of my life, there is nothing that I have not tried, nothing I cannot understand, no one who cannot hug,” Kim said.
