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| Rep. Lee Jae-myung, a leading candidate for the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea's chairman post, speaks during a press conference at the National Assembly in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap |
Hopes of winning ― and keeping ― party leadership hinge on possible indictment for ex-presidential candidate
By Jung Min-ho
Rep. Lee Jae-myung, a leading candidate for the opposition Democratic Party of Korea's top post, claimed his innocence Wednesday amid an ongoing investigation into corruption allegations surrounding him and his family, accusing prosecutors and police of "colluding" with certain politicians.
The risk of being prosecuted stands as the biggest obstacle to his ambition of controlling the party for the next two years. Lee, 57, leads the two other shortlisted candidates ― Rep. Park Yong-jin and Rep. Kang Hoon-sik ― by a comfortable margin. But if he is indicted ― before or after its Aug. 28 national convention ― his role could be suspended under the party rules.
"There is no evidence despite years of accusations," Lee said in his first press conference at the National Assembly after being elected as a lawmaker in June. "There should be evident facts if I did anything wrong, not the possibility or presumption of it."
He then accused the investigators of intervening in politics by abusing their power.
"I saw media reports that the investigation will be finished by the middle of August before the national convention. I hope this isn't true. This means the investigators will be intervening in political processes," he said.
Lee, who served as Seongnam's mayor from 2010 to 2018 before being elected governor of Gyeonggi Province, is under investigation for several allegations, including tax embezzlement and giving favors to certain property developers during his term.
Last week, a man who had been questioned by the investigators was found dead in his home. He was the fourth person found dead in the last eight months during the investigation targeting Lee. The man, who worked as a non-executive director at a Gyeonggi Province-affiliated agency when Lee was governor, was found to live in a home owned by Lee's close aide before his death.
Yet, Lee has denied any meaningful connections with them, despite some photos suggesting otherwise.
At the conference, Lee said he should be blamed for the losses in the presidential and local elections as the party's candidate and campaign leader, respectively. But he said he believes the losses had little to do with the decision to nominate him as a candidate without contest for a legislative by-election in Incheon's Gyeyang District, a party stronghold that has little connection to him.
He also claimed that he was not involved in making that decision. Park Ji-hyun, 26, who was leading the party with Rep. Yun Ho-jung during the local election campaign, claimed recently that Lee demanded the nomination and she felt pressured. But he denied having done so.
"I was not in a position where I could make such decisions then. I had no other option but to run, which I thought would be helpful for the party," he said.
According to a survey released July 25 by KSOI, a local pollster, 42.7 percent of respondents said they would support Lee as party leader, followed by Park (14 percent) and Kang (1.7 percent).
In another survey released Tuesday by Research View, 41 percent of respondents said they would support Lee as the next presidential candidate among liberal politicians, followed by former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon (15 percent) and Gyeonggi Governor Kim Dong-yeon (10 percent).
Given that the opposition party holds a majority in the Assembly, Lee would exert a strong influence if he wins, being able to block the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's key reform policies and oversee the party's nominations for the 2024 general elections. Experts believe he would use the position to maximize his political clout on his path toward the next presidency, as former President Moon Jae-in had done.
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