Ex-President Roh Moo-hyun's aide announces presidential bid

Rep. Lee Kwang-jae, a three-term lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea who was a close aide to former President Roh Moo-hyun, speaks during a ceremony to declare his presidential bid at the Korea Federation of SMEs on Yeouido, Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap

By Jung Da-min

Rep. Lee Kwang-jae, a three-term lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), has officially declared his bid for the March 2022 presidential election.

In a ceremony announcing his presidential bid at the Korea Federation of SMEs on Seoul's Yeouido, Thursday, the 56-year-old politician, who is well-known for his close ties to former President Roh Moo-hyun, said he was the right person to lead the generational shift in the country's politics as the next president.

“We need a political revolution in which a shift in the times, generation and players takes place,” Lee said during the ceremony. “We must learn from the history of innovation: former President Kim Dae-jung pioneered the era of venture capital and the IT economy; former President Roh Moo-hyun opened an era of balanced regional development and set up the vision of Korea becoming an open trade state; President Moon Jae-in is opening the era of the Korean New Deal.”

Lee vowed to boost the country's economy by focusing on creating jobs and improving welfare. He said the market should lead the way to solving the jobs problem, with the government supporting the market, which is the opposite of the DPK's stance of emphasizing the role of the big government.

“With the protagonists of industrialization and democratization, I will send the signal of a generational shift so that people in their 20s and 30s and the digital generation will appear at the forefront of the country's history,” Lee said.

Lee served as Roh's aide when the former president was a lawmaker, and took a senior secretary post when Roh became president. Lee then served two terms as a lawmaker of the 17th and 18th National Assemblies.

He became the governor of Gangwon Province in 2010, but was jailed for receiving illegal political funds, and was stripped of his governorship. His political career then went through a long hiatus, during which he served as head of Yeosijae Future Consensus Institute, a Seoul-based think tank focusing on peace in Northeast Asia, before joining the 21st National Assembly last year.

With about nine months left until the next presidential election, three members of the ruling party have officially declared their presidential bids so far. The others are two-term lawmaker Park Yong-jin and South Chungcheong Province Governor Yang Seung-jo.

Other heavyweights, such as Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung, former Prime Minster Chung Sye-kyun and former DPK leader Rep. Lee Nak-yon, are also expected to declare their bids soon, as they have been mentioned as popular prospective candidates of the ruling bloc.