Lee Jae-myung

This article is about the politician. For the footballer, see Lee Jae-myung (footballer).

Lee Jae-myung
이재명
Lee Jae-myung in 2015
Mayor of Seongnam
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 July 2010
Preceded by	Lee Dae-yup
Personal details
Born	(1964-12-22) 22 December 1964 Andong, South Korea
Citizenship	South Korean
Political party	Minjoo Party of Korea
Alma mater	Chung-Ang University
Occupation	Lawyer

Lee Jae-myung
Hangul	이재명
Hanja	李在明
Revised Romanization	I Jaemyeong
McCune–Reischauer	Yi Chaemyŏng

Lee Jae-myung (Korean: 이재명; Hanja: 李在明; born 22 December 1964) is a South Korean politician in the liberal Minjoo Party of Korea. He has been Mayor of Seongnam since 2010. After the President-Choi Soon Sil Scandal, the invisible heavyweight in President Guen-hye Park’s regime and also Park’s longtime friend and the daughter of South Korean Shamanistic cult leader Choi Tae-min [3], Lee’s political status went high and scored second highest in the approval rate among the opposite party candidates(Nov. 2016) for 2016 Presidential Election. He was the first political leader in South Korea to officially demand Park’s resignation from presidency. Lee ran unsuccessfully for the National Assembly in 2008. In 2016, he was named by interim party leader Kim Chong-in as a contender for the 2017 presidential election. His approval rating for presidential candidacy is about 16 percent as of December 2016, being one of the "Big 3" potential candidates for 2017 presidential election. Some of his notable acheivements include Seongnam's social welfare program which is regarded as one of the most comprehensive social welfare programs in the nation for the city's elderly citizens and youth, and banning of dogmeat from Moran Market which has been the largest dogmeat market in South Korea since 1960.

Early life

Lee was born as the fifth child in the family with five sons and two daughters in December 1963 in a remote mountain village in Andong, North Kyeongsang province of South Korea. He grew up in extreme poverty and had to start working in a factory after finishing elementary school, giving up further formal school education. While working as a child laborer to help support his family, he had an accident in the factory in which his left arm was pressed under a heavy machine, leaving it permanently damaged. To this day, he cannot straighten out his left arm.

Working as a child laborer, he passed Korean version of GED, the junior and senior high school qualification exam. He studied law at Chung-Ang University on full scholarship providing tuition waiver and stipends of bigger amount than what he could earn as a laborer at the time. Afraid that he would not be hired at a private firm due to his disability, Lee studied for the South Korean bar exam, passed, and entered the South Korean Judicial Research and Training Institute 18th class. He was impressed with former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun’s lecture at the institute, and started working as a civil-rights lawyer and campaigner based in the city of SeongNam. Lee became the city’s mayor at the age of 46.

Political Career

<The South Korean first politician to officially claim Park Geun Hye’s resignation from presidency following the President-Choi Soon Sil Scandal >

Lee is the first South Korean politician to openly claim Park’s resignation from presidency after the 2016 President-Choi Soon Sil scandal which revealed that Choi had been interfering with government operations without any formal appointments. Along with the criticism, he volunteered to run for the following Presidential Election which is expected to be held early as Park has been officially impeached. Lee’s support ratings dramatically increased to approximately 15% (December, 2016) and the second highest amongst possible contenders for the next South Korean presidential election from the opposite party.

<Path as Seongnam’s Mayor>

1.    Declaration of Moratorium

Lee joined the liberal ‘Uri Party’ in 2006 and lost at his first attempt to become the mayor of SeongNam. He succeeded in occupying the mayor’s office in 2010 by earning 51.2% of the vote. However, with the mayor’s office, he also inherited Seongnam’s debt of 728.5 million dollars(USD) incurred by the prior administration's lenient municipal management. In order to relieve the city from this debt, which accounted for approximately one third of the annual budget, Lee instituted a series of aggressive policies aimed at returning the City to a state of fiscal health, which included the open declaration of moratorium by the mayor’s right. Lee led the city out of moratorium in January 2014 by continued budget cuts, selling the city’s assets, and issuing local debt. Seongnam is one of the most financially healthy cities in the Republic of Korea.

Under Lee, Seongnam claims to practice the 'three plus one principle' of financial management. The city saves money by eliminating three things: Corruption, wasteful spending, and tax evasion. Lee also opposed using the central government’s guideline of “Standard of Estimate” which is more expensive than actual market prices in construction cost. In addition, Lee opened all information regarding the public construction orders worth more than one million USD since April 2016, which is deemed to have eradicated corruption.

2. Welfare policies

Even during the moratorium period, Lee expanded welfare budgets. After establishing sound financial status, he expanded welfare budgets more.

In 2016, Lee secured 11 million dollars (USD) to carry out three public welfare projects.

(1)  Youth Allocation : Seongnam City provides 500 dollars(USD) for 24-year-olds who have lived in the city for over three years, approximately 11,300 youngsters. Young people call their mother nation “Hell Korea.” Youth allocation can give them pride that the government care about them and also some room for what they want to do. Last year Lee was interviewed by Enno Schmidt, co-founder of the Swiss Basic Income Initiative, for having introduced the 'Youth Dividend' program, an unconditional basic income system for the young people in his city.

(2)  Postnatal Care : Seongnam City provide 250 dollars(USD) for women who gave a birth for Postnatal Care. Korea is one of the lowest childbirth nations and postnatal cost is very burdensome. To relieve the financial burden for parents, Seongnam City support postnatal care for parents.

(3)  Free Uniforms for middle school students : Seongnam City supports 150 dollars(USD) for middle school students to buy school uniforms, about 8,900 students. Costs for private academic institution for students are very high in South Korea. School uniform is one of the economic burdens for parents. To relieve this burden from parents, Seongnam City provides half of the school uniform cost for parents.

Regarding these welfare policies, conservative party members and even the President Park criticized calling them as “populism” and Lee as “populist.”

Lee argued with them, saying “Populists are Saenuri party members and the president. They promised many things with citizens for election but did not keep any of them, which means that they lied only for votes. However, I kept and executed my election pledges for citizens. Who are populists?”

Lee also disputed, “I did not raises taxes, but eradicated corruption, collected taxes fairly, and prevented budget leak and waste. Therefore, I was able to expand public welfare. On the other hand, the president Park and Saenuri party raised taxes but reduced welfare, which is directly opposite to their election pledges.”

3. Reorganization of the local governments’ finances

The central government of Korea pushed local governments toward inappropriate financial system. They declared to redistribute local tax income from six local governments (which are not subsidized through the grant from central government to local governments) to other local governments with fiscal self-reliance ratio. The central government claimed that the aim was to reduce the disparities in tax income among local governments by revising the standards of the national grant: reducing the reflection rate of population while increasing that of ‘financial power.’ Seongnam is one of the six local governments that has comparatively financially independent city government, along with Hwaseong, Suwon, Yongin, Goyang, and Gwacheon, relatively independent but still dependent upon other government subsidies. If central government’s plan is imposed, approximately 300 billion SKW of the six city governments’ local tax income will be appropriated as ‘provincial tax’ and redistributed to other local governments.

Lee opposed this reorganization plan based on two reasons:

1)    Redistributing the tax income of six city governments (unsubsidized by the grant from national government to local government) to 25 subsidized local governments will result in a reverse phenomenon. The governments’ tax income per citizen of the local governments with national grant will exceed that of the six city governments with no national grant on the average by 250,000 won according to ‘지방재정 개편안 평가와 지방재정조정제도 개혁 방안’

2)    The redistribution plan will destroy the autonomy of local-governments by eliminating their financial basis to carry out policies and projects of their own. The benefits of redistribution cannot be a fundamental solution for the 225 of other local governments with low fiscal self-reliance ratio, but the negative impact on the six cities will be devastating.

Lee is also known for fasting for 11 days at the Gwanghwamoon square to publicize his claim, which publicly gave the impression that he is a fighter for citizens and what he believes in. After the long controversy regarding this matter, the central government stepped back, saying that they would reduce the scale of budget cut of the six cities. Therefore, the budget cut size planned by the central government decreased by more than half for the next three years. However, still the controversy is going on regarding the legitimacy of the reorganization of the local governments’ finances.