Lee Jae-myung, leader of South Korea's largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea, was attacked on January 2. Lee Jae-myung's injury was on the left side of his neck, and the wound was about one centimeter. After being taken to the hospital, Lee Jae-myung was in stable condition. The man who attacked him reportedly refused to answer police questioning after being arrested.
Source: Yahoo Finance
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol expressed concern about Lee Jae-myung's safety, instructed the police and other relevant departments to investigate, and said that he would do his best to assist Lee Jae-myung. Yoon Suk-yeol stressed that under no circumstances will South Korean society tolerate such violence.
Lee Kyu-tae, a professor at Kwantung University in South Korea's Catoli Kwantung University, told the reporter that there are still about 100 days before the South Korean parliamentary election, and although the attack has a great impact, it remains to be seen how it can directly affect the votes in the election.
Professor Ling Shengli, director of the Center for International Security Studies at the China Foreign Affairs University, told a reporter that Lee Jae-myung's attack would win him sympathy points to a certain extent, but at present, the division and struggle within the Democratic Party of Korea are very fierce. Lee Jae-myung's lawsuit, which he has previously resorted to in extreme ways to fight against hunger strikes, also shows that the issue is not a simple judicial issue, but has a very strong political struggle color, so the attack will have a certain impact on South Korea's domestic political elections.
■ Lee Jae-myung's position within the Democratic Party of Korea is shaky
Those familiar with South Korean politics know that as Moon's successor in the Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung is not actually Moon's most satisfactory candidate. Lee was the leader of the Democratic Party of Korea and the prime minister of the Moon Jae-in administration, and was once expected to be a close confidant of Moon. However, in the 2021 Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) circuit primaries and three Electoral College votes, Lee Jae-myung won a combined 50.29% of the vote, ahead of his party rivals such as Lee Nak-yeon, former Justice Minister Cho Mi-ae, and National Assemblyman Park Yong-jin, and qualified to represent the Democratic Party of Korea in the presidential election in the following year.
Speaking of Lee Jae-myung, he is labeled as a "worker-turned-politician". When Li Zaiming was a child, his family was poor and had no money to study, so he had to go out to work when he was a teenager, and he accidentally injured his hand and left him disabled for life. But Lee Jae-myung, who has excellent Xi ability, was admitted to the law department of Chung-Ang University in South Korea, and his fate has changed since then. Subsequently, he successively ran for mayor of Seongnam City and governor of Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, and achieved good political results. In particular, during his tenure as mayor of Seongnam City, Lee Jae-myung repeatedly disobeyed the opinions of then-President Park Geun-hye, and the two even went on a hunger strike to the point of Lee Jae-myung's hunger strike. After Park Geun-hye broke the scandal of her best friend's interference in politics, Lee Jae-myung was the first to stand up and demand that Park Geun-hye step down.
It can be said that the grassroots Lee Jae-ming has won his current status completely by his own hard work. But there are always two sides to the story, and Lee's uncompromising personality has also earned him criticism within the Democratic Party. Opponents argue that Lee Jae-myung is authoritarian and supports only his faction and his own ideas. As the current leader of South Korea's opposition party, Lee Jae-myung is known for his outspokenness. He was considered a hard-line liberal and built up an anti-establishment figure. In South Korea, he earned the nickname "Sprite" for his straightforward and spicy style of expression and aggressive political views. Lee Jae-myung also put forward a series of radical economic policies, and even shouted that "I will allow South Korea to surpass Japan, catch up with other developed countries, and eventually lead the world."
As early as 2017, Lee Jae-myung offended many Moon Jae-in supporters within the party by lashing out at Moon Jae-in. Outside analysts believe that there is even a potential "anti-Lee Jae-myung coalition" within the Democratic Party. Time has passed, but Lee Jae-myung now has to rely on Moon Jae-in's support for him in order to maintain his position as the party leader.
At the critical juncture of 100 days before the parliamentary election, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon during the Moon Jae-in administration publicly announced that he could not support Lee Jae-myung or stand with Lee Jae-myung after meeting with Lee Jae-myung.
Lee Jae-myung and Lee Nak-yeon (right)
Lee Kyu-tae, a professor at Kanto University in South Korea's Cato, believes that if Lee Jae-myung is seriously injured, the Democratic Party of Korea may consider putting forward a new candidate. On the other hand, Lee Jae-myung has been called "South Korea's Trump", and just as Trump's sharp language and unsurprising words are endless, Lee Jae-myung has many accusations, and he has to go to court almost every week. The lawsuits may also be one of the potential disadvantages for Lee.
Professor Ling Shengli, director of the Center for International Security Studies at the China Foreign Affairs University, believes that under the current circumstances, the attack may add points to Lee Jae-myung's future political development. However, in the face of the division of different factions within the party, especially the irreparable contradiction between Lee Jae-myung and Lee Luo-yeon, it should be said that Lee Jae-myung is still facing a great challenge in whether he can rely on his own strength to reach a higher level.
■Attacks on politicians in Japan and South Korea are frequent
Assassinations of politicians in South Korean history, including the attack on Lee Jae-myung, are not uncommon, most notably those of Park Geun-hye's father, then-South Korean President Park Chung-hee, and his wife.
Park Chung-hee, a "political strongman" who ruled South Korea for 18 years, implemented a series of policies to strengthen the centralization of presidential power during his term of office, and made countless enemies.
On August 15, 1974, North Korean spy Moon Se-kwang tried to shoot the then-incumbent President Park Chung-hee with a pistol at a convention. Five years later, on October 26, 1979, Park Chung-hee was shot dead by then-CIA Minister Kim Jae-gyu in Miyjeong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, a secret banquet hall of South Korea's Central Intelligence Agency. Park Chung-hee was shot in the chest and head and died on the spot, as was the head of the Blue House Guard Office and four bodyguards who attended the banquet together.
Years later, Park Chung-hee's eldest daughter, Park Geun-hye, suffered a similar situation. In 2006, Park Geun-hye, then the leader of the Grand National Party, was stabbed with a utility knife by a 50-year-old man, Ji Chung-ho, while running for mayor of Seoul for Oh Se-hoon, the candidate of the Grand National Party. Ms. Park underwent a three-hour operation and 60 stitches. The assassination was a great benefit to the Grand National Party's support ratings, as it took place 30 days before the local elections, and Park Geun-hye's heartbroken speech shook the whole country, increasing the party's public approval rating by 2.6 percentage points.
The scene of Park's injury speech touched her supporters.
Moon Jae-in has also received a series of assassination threats. In 2017, a 26-year-old young man threatened to assassinate Moon Jae-in in preparation for the presidential campaign on the Internet, but the man later voluntarily surrendered. In 2019, a post reading "Assassination of Moon Jae-in" was posted on a far-right website. At one point, the South Korean government also asked Interpol to help track down the suspect because of the foreigner's posting. In 2021, some netizens posted on a forum in South Korea, threatening to assassinate Moon Jae-in, and claimed that he had purchased an M9 pistol with a photo.
Of course, not all assassinations have contributed to the election. In 2022, Song Yong-gil, then the leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, was canvassing for Lee Jae-myung's presidential campaign when an elderly man in a traditional robe struck Song Yong-gil on the head with a hammer. The timing of the incident was very sensitive, just two days before the presidential election vote. However, at that time, Lee Jae-myung lost to his opponent Yoon Suk-yeol by less than 1%.
Song Yong-gil, the former head of the Democratic Party of Korea, was attacked
South Korea's neighbor, Japan, has also seen a spite of assassinations in recent years. The most memorable is that in 2022, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot in the heart with a homemade pistol by former Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force member Toru Yamagami during a street speech, and finally died. The attack, which shocked the whole of Japan and the world, said that the attacker, Yamagami, was not dissatisfied with Abe because of his political stance, but because his relatives were persecuted by the "Unification Church" and unfortunately passed on his hatred to Abe, who was sympathetic to the sect.
The security is full of holes, and the attacker Toru Yamagami also has an opportunity.
Less than a year after Abe's assassination, another assassination of a politician has taken place in Japan, this time against the current prime minister, Fumio Kishida. Perhaps a lesson from the questionable security measures of Abe's assassination, Fumio Kishida unfolded a bulletproof backpack to evacuate the scene under the protection of security personnel, and Kishida was not injured.
Professor Ling Shengli, director of the Center for International Security Studies at the China Foreign Affairs University, believes that the current risk factor for Japanese and South Korean people to express or release their emotions by attacking politicians is rising. Therefore, in the future, similar elections, including the appearance of politicians in public, will put forward higher requirements for security work. The unfair distribution of social resources and the radical character of some South Korean people will also contribute to the assassination.
Lee Kyu-tae, a professor at Kanto University in South Korea's Catoli Kwantung University, pointed out that the attack on Lee Jae-myung is not completely consistent with the "murder notice" case that has occurred in South Korean society in recent years. Because the suspect in the attack on Lee Jae-myung is an elderly man born in 1957, and most of the makers of the "murder notice" are teenagers, who have made death threats due to their broken love or unsatisfactory life. Lee Kyu-tae speculated that the attack may have been a crime imitation, or it may also be a concentrated manifestation of the existing political problems and factional antagonism in South Korea, and it cannot be ruled out that there are people in the ruling party and even Lee Jae-myung who want to express their dissatisfaction with Lee Jae-myung by assassinating him.
Author丨Yang Ying, the chief writer of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News, and Jiang Wenli, Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News reporter.