President Lee Jae Myung greets attendees after concluding a press conference at the Blue House guesthouse on the morning of Sept. 18.JUN MIN-KYU
Lee Hyun-sang
The author is a columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo.
President Lee Jae Myung is a politician who rose from outside the establishment. He acknowledges it himself. In a press conference on Friday, Lee said, “It was the people who called me, an outsider from the periphery, to this position as the nation’s chief executive.” For Lee, “from the periphery,” a phrase embodying his story of overcoming adversity, is not a complex but a source of pride.
Life on the political margins, however, is arduous. Outsiders must constantly prove themselves, a pressure difficult for insiders to appreciate. As mayor of the Gyeonggi city of Seongnam, Lee’s declaration of a moratorium on municipal debt payments and his early call in 2016 for President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment were political gambles. Critics called them “showmanship” and “radical,” but repeated acts of self-assertion carried him from the margins to the center of national politics.
Even as president, Lee still faces demands to prove himself because his political roots differ from the Democratic Party’s (DP) mainstream pro-Roh Moo-hyun and pro-Moon Jae-in factions. In 2007, he co-chaired an outside support group for Chung Dong-young, then competing with the pro-Roh camp. In the 2017 presidential primary, Lee challenged Moon Jae-in.
Underlying hard-liners’ attitudes toward Lee is suspicion about his political direction. The complaint is that they “expected an extension, but he is attempting reconstruction.” Gyeonggi Gov. Choo Mi-ae’s protest over Lee’s nomination of Kim Ji-yong to head the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency — amid criticism that Kim was pro-Yoon Suk Yeol and opposed prosecutorial reform — reflects the same concern. Choo asked why the administration was “walking on eggshells around insurrectionary forces.”
Distrust of Lee comes simultaneously from left and right, converging on one issue: his legal risks. Conservatives suspect he could misuse presidential power for personal benefit, while DP hard-liners worry that concern about his safety after leaving office could weaken the drive for reform. A claim aired on left-leaning broadcaster Kim Eo-jun’s program about a supposed trade-off between withdrawing indictments and retaining prosecutors’ supplementary investigative authority illustrates that distrust.
Lee devoted considerable effort at his press conference to dispelling such suspicions. He said he had “absolutely no” intention of seeking another term and asked the DP to remove from its special counsel bill a clause granting authority to withdraw indictments. He also appealed directly to hard-line supporters, saying, “The differences among us cannot be greater than the distance between us and what we must overcome.”
Yet doubts remain. Lee did not object to the proposed special counsel investigation into allegedly fabricated indictments itself. That leaves open the possibility that indictments could ultimately be withdrawn based on its findings. Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won has withdrawn, but it is difficult to interpret that as abandoning the idea of withdrawing charges. Some speculate that a petition from the nominee's former aides containing additional allegations was decisive.
What is needed, ultimately, is action rather than words. The starting point for overcoming suspicion would be a step demonstrating that the president can rise above private motives: a declaration that he will face his trials squarely.
Since taking office, Lee has sought to prove himself through pragmatic governing results. He set rising stock prices and housing stability as goals and won positive assessments for a flexible approach to foreign and security policy. But markets did not cooperate. Stocks fluctuated sharply while housing and jeonse (lump-sum deposit) prices remained unstable. In a domestic and international environment full of unpredictable variables, there are inevitable limits to proving oneself through policy outcomes alone.
Lee has something more important to prove: his stature as a political leader, and the composure to pursue public values beyond personal interests. Character reveals itself when circumstances turn against you, just as the pine’s green becomes clearest in winter.
As an outsider politician, bold gambles were Lee’s way of proving his existence. That time has passed. He is no longer an outsider on the periphery. He now stands at the center of Korean politics. What he must prove is no longer his ability to wield power, but his ability to restrain it. That test will be harder than any outsider’s gamble because restraint offers fewer immediate rewards, even as it demands greater discipline.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
