SEOUL, Aug. 18 (AJU PRESS) – Lee Jae-myung, former chairman of the Democratic Party (DP), South Korea’s main opposition party, was re-elected as party chairman on Sunday.
At the month-long party congress that ended that day, Lee received 85.4 percent of the vote, the highest support rate ever achieved in an election for party chairman.
Lee defeated party heavyweight Kim Doo-gwan, who received 12.12 percent of the vote, and outsider candidate Kim Ji-soo, who received 2.48 percent. Lee will serve as chairman for two years.
The liberal opposition party also elected five members of the Supreme Council: Kim Min-seok, Jeon Hyun-heui, Han Jun-ho, Kim Byung-joo and Lee Un-ju.
Lee’s victory was widely expected, as he had already secured nearly 90 percent of the votes of regional party members by Saturday.
Lee, a former governor of Gyeonggi province, is considered the DP’s leading candidate for the 2027 presidential election, despite facing trials in four cases, including a land development scandal and bribery allegations related to money transfers to North Korea.
He narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election to Yoon Suk Yeol of the conservative People Power Party (PPP). He became DP chairman later that year, but resigned in June to run for re-election.
After his re-election, Lee proposed one-on-one talks with President Yoon to discuss pressing economic and political issues.
“The most urgent task is to restore people’s livelihoods, but the agenda does not need to be limited if it can give the public hope,” Lee said in his acceptance speech at the DP’s national congress in Seoul’s Olympic Park.
Lee also offered to meet with PPP Chairman Han Dong-hoon to discuss a wide range of pressing issues, particularly the opposition’s proposed independent investigation into allegations that Yoon and senior officials interfered in a military investigation into the death of a marine during flood relief efforts last year.
In May, Yoon vetoed the bill after the DP single-handedly pushed it through the National Assembly.
