Presidential hopefuls win votes by kissing babies. A brave parent offers their infant to Lee Jae-myung, who has a signature move of taekwondo kicks and punches.
Lee will have to smash through more than just boards if he succeeds in the election. Voters are demanding that whoever ends up in the presidential Blue House dismantle the rampant inequality that plagues South Korean society, a condition underscored by a series of scandals that emerged during the tenure of incumbent President Moon Jae-in. Moon is ineligible to stand for a second term because he is a member of the Democratic Party.
The 65-year-old Choo Yeon-chang says Lee has proven he is the one who can reform Korea.
Lee served as mayor of the city of Seongnam for seven years before becoming governor of Gyeonggi Province, which is the most populous province in South Korea. He shot to national prominence through his uncompromising handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, even tactfully negotiating with the leader of a shadowy religious sect to allow testing, and advocating for universal basic income. South Korea would be the only major economy to adopt a UBI. The Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Andrew Yang has advocated a similar scheme. Lee is campaigning to ensure that at least 30% of top officials are women. In April 2020, a record 57 women were elected to the 300-seat parliament; the proportion was the highest ever since democratization in 1987. He says it is an urge that comes from going through injustice himself.
Lee's opponent in the race is a fellow lawyer, who as prosecutor general pursued high-profile corruption cases against jailed former President Park Geun-hye, as well as Moon. Although he has no governing experience, he is seen as a populist whose following is due to a corrupt image. Yoon declined a request for an interview. Both candidates were neck and neck in the last permitted polling before the ballot.
Lee's appeal to South Korea's poor are more than just words. Lee was the fifth of seven children in a farming family who would walk 10 miles to school each day. Lee had to clean the school toilets because he was too poor to afford paper or crayons. Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was one of the adventure books he devoured at the school's small library.
Lee lied about his age to work in factories, where he was often held hostage. He was officially designated as disabled and excused from national service after his wrist was crushed in a pressing machine. His father's gambling addiction led to him attempting suicide.
The pain of those formative years opened the young Lee's eyes to social injustice that still plagues Korean society. Even top college graduates struggle to earn enough to get a foot on the housing ladder in South Korea, where the elderly must recycle cardboard to make ends meet. According to Statistics Korea, disposable income for the top 20% of earners is five times higher than that for the lowest 20%.
Lee realized that it was a structural social problem after he became a college student. I made a promise that I would not leave anyone else to live the same life as I did.
Lee was accepted to law school despite not having a formal secondary education. When he was mayor of Seongnam, he paid youth dividends of 250,000 won per quarter to young residents, which became so successful that he expanded the program across Gyeonggi Province. If he wins, Lee's UBI would be an extension of the assistance he gave in Gyeonggi Province, where each resident received 100,000 won ($80) last year but had to spend it within three months in order to boost local business.
The author of an authoritative biography of Lee says that he originated from the most backward place of the 20th century.
While domestic issues are dominating the campaign, tensions across the demilitarized zone are once again rearing their head after North Korea hit a record month of missile testing in January. Despite the engagement of Moon and former U.S. President Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un still has around 60 nuclear bombs and intercontinental missiles. Nuclear-tipped missiles are being developed by North Korea. If provocations escalate, Yoon advocated a pre-emptive military strike against the Kim regime. Yoon said that a pre-emptive strike would protect peace.
Conflict has never felt so close. Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has already killed hundreds and displaced 1 million people.
China has refused to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, despite meeting Putin in Beijing just days before tanks rolled into the country. South Korea has indicated willingness to engage more in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Strategy and so-called Quad Plus security apparatus, groupings of Asian-Pacific democracies united to constrain China. Beijing rebuked him for emphasizing the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
South Koreans hope for an anti-Discrimination law.
Lee's rags-to-riches success story parallels the story of South Korea itself. Despite being decimated by World War II and the Korean War, the nation today has a population of 50 million and is the 10th largest economy. Korean culture, including food, TV and K-pop music, have drawn huge followings around the world. After a string of Korean smash hits, the streaming giant said it will at least match the $460 million it spent in the country this year. Lee said that he would like to wish and hope that the Korean culture was only in the beginning.
South Korea looks over its shoulder again because of the invasion of Ukraine. Lee insists that the rules-based world order must be strengthened in the face of Russia's aggression.
Lee wants to continue with theshine policy in order to stave off war with the North. Kim held three summits with Moon, five with Putin, and three with Trump, who said of the dictator following a summit in Singapore: "We fell in love." In June 2020, North Korea blew up a liaison office.
Lee says that the main factor in the progress is a lack of trust. It isn't beneficial for the advancement or development of North Korea.
One elderly conservative Daegu resident tells TIME that Moon is a friend of Kim Jong Un and that he is a dictator. Lee will be the same as Moon.
It will be difficult to win over the U.S. and international community on inter-Korean economic cooperation without real progress on denuclearization. It's a big question if any deal is now possible. Since the Pandemic, North Korea has turned away food aid. Kim wants the suspension of the South Korea-U.S. military exercises as a condition for talks with both countries.
If the fate of Ukraine has lessons for South Korea and North Korea, that's right. When the Soviet Union broke up, the scientists of Ukraine helped develop the missiles of North Korea. The Ukrainian mistake was to swap out the chance to have a nuclear deterrent for security guarantees from Russia and the West.
With the world distracted by carnage in Eastern Europe, Kim will take the opportunity to further hone his weapons. It is now impossible for the U.S. to get Russia's consent for new UN sanctions.
Lee believes that he will have to work harder with Beijing to keep his country safe.
Lee wants to shake up the military establishment. Moon wants to transfer Wartime Operational Control from the U.S. to the Korean military. He wants South Korea to build nuclear-powered submarines that can operate longer and farther from home. South Korea will be able to play a more prominent role in regional security. He is eager to promote a two-track strategy to restore relations with Japan, which reached a nadir during the Moon administration because of South Korea pressing the Japanese on human-rights abuses during World War II.
This plan needs to be put into action if it is to be successful. Even by the standards of South Korea, where sleaze and corruption allegations are commonplace, it has been a pretty dirty campaign so far. Lee had to apologize after his son was caught gambling illegally, and has faced allegations that he illegally hired a provincial government employee to serve as his wife's personal assistant, who then misappropriated state funds via his corporate credit card. Lee will cooperate with any investigation. Three people associated with a corruption probe into scandals surrounding Lee have died. Lee's campaign team dismissed any connection to their candidate as fake news.
When his wife applied for teaching jobs and denied stock manipulation, he had to apologize for the false information on her resume. He has denied any links to an anal acupuncturist or a shaman in his campaign. It's not inspiring. Ahn Cheol-soo, a fringe conservative candidate, dropped out of the race on March 3 and threw his support behind Yoon.
Lee's hopes appear to rest on the liberal voters, who he hopes will consolidate behind him, and on the promise that he has the vision and track.
Charlie Campbell can be reached at charlie.campbell@time.com.
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