PROFILE Who is DPK's Lee Jae-myung?
Controversial, stubborn and tenacious are some adjectives that can be associated with Lee Jae-myung, 61, who is competing for the third time in South Korea's June 3 presidential election. Leading the polls with a wide margin, Lee is a heavyweight politician with the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), having served as the former party leader, as well as governor of Gyeonggi Province and mayor of Seongnam City. Born in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, as the fifth child out of seven, he grew up poor. He often skipped elementary school because he had to walk 5 kilometers to get there. Lee moved to Seongnam as a teenager, but had to give up school to earn money, alongside his mother and sister who cleaned toilets. He worked at multiple factories, and his wrist was crushed in an industrial accident. This injury later exempted him from mandatory military service. He substituted his missed school years with equivalency exams and studied law at Chung-Ang University with a scholarship. Lee passed the state bar exam in 1986, and became a human rights lawyer and activist. He entered the poli
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