Lea Jae-Myung becomes South Korea’s new president

Lee Jae-Myung can thank the deposed President Yoon Suk-Yeol for the election victory. It was his crazy decision to in democracy South Korea without Reason introducing war laws And send tanks out on the streets that decided Tuesday’s election. Many South Koreans cannot forgive Yoon for what he did and they accuse the presidential candidate for his conservative party, Kim Moon-Soo, for having been involved in it. The event has completely characterized the election campaign where issues have come in the cloud.

Now Lee Jae-Myung, who will take over as president on Wednesday, is being tuned into leading a country that tumbled around in political chaos ever since December when Yoon made his shocking decision on a state of emergency. Yoon has been convicted in national law, three presidents have in a short time redeemed each other and supporters in both camps, right and left, have taken the streets in daily protests.

One of Lee Jae-Myungs The main task is to unite a country that appears as More divided than ever. The right points out Lee Jae-Myung and his party supporters as communists and want in Maga style « Make Korea Great again », with lowered tax and hard China policy, among other things. At the same time, Lee’s democratic party has promised that Yoon and his supporters will be punished and imprisoned for what they did.

South Korea is also a country where young men and women are far apart. After a short -lived feminist movement, young men have protested and claimed that it is those who are discriminated against. And here are serious societal problems to address. Like the number of suicides in South Korea is among the highest in the world. And that South Korean women Feeds fewer children than anywhere else.

At the same time, the previously so fast -growing South Korean economy has stopped, the first quarter of this year backed up GDP. Trump’s tariffs only made it even worse for the export -dependent nation with well -known brands such as Samsung and LG.

Negotiating the customs becomes one of Lee Jae-Myung’s first information. It will be a neighborly task. At the same time as the United States is South Korea’s most important allies in defense issues, China is the country’s largest trading partner, which is needed to raise economic growth. Here Lee is allowed to go carefully. The country needs both China, for economic reasons, and the United States, for defense policy reasons. The Trump administration has urged allies to reduce their dependence on China. Trump has also questioned why the United States pays so much to have troops in South Korea, which live under constant threats from North Korea and its nuclear weapons.

In the election campaign Lee taken a middle ground. He has said that the Defense Alliance with the United States exists, but that he wants a more functioning relationship with China. At the same time, he has been softer in tone than Yoon towards North Korea and opened to resume family reunions between the north and the south.

In Lee Jae-Myung, South Korea, who quickly has gone from poor to rich country, gets a president with a story that many Koreans can recognize. He grew up in the Söder Seoul slum and was forced to start working in the factory already when he was 13 years old. His arm is still not fully functional after it was crushed by a machine in the factory that made baseball gloves.

But Lee Jae-Myung got off the factory floor, became a lawyer and later politicians. Many South Koreans hope that the choice sets the point for the chaos and will be the start of a more stable period. However, it is not obvious. Lee is facing several legal processes. These include, among other things, corruption in a building when he was a governor and about the abuse of public funds. Whether the trials will continue when he is president is unclear. If they do, a new chaos can occur far earlier than most people want.

Read more:
For May mothers are South Korea’s presidential election on life and death