South Korea's New President Lee Vows to Revive Democracy from ‘Near Demise'
Lee's decisive victory in Tuesday's snap election stands to usher in a sea change in Asia's fourth-largest economy, after backlash against a botched attempt at military rule brought down Yoon Suk Yeol just three years into his troubled presidency.
He faces what could be the most daunting set of challenges for a South Korean leader in nearly three decades, ranging from healing a country deeply scarred by the martial law attempt to tackling unpredictable protectionist moves by the United States, a major trading partner and a security ally.
"A Lee Jae-myung government will be a pragmatic pro-market government," he said after taking the oath of office at parliament, a location where six months ago he jumped over the perimeter wall to enter the chamber and avoid martial law troops barricading it to vote down the decree.
He promised deregulation to spur innovation and growth in business and pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea while maintaining a strong security alliance with the United States and bringing balance to diplomacy.
"It is better to win without fighting than to win in a fight, and peace with no need to fight is the best security," he said on the country's often violent ties with rival North Korea.
Lee was officially confirmed earlier as president by the National Election Commission and immediately assumed the powers of the presidency and commander in chief, speaking with the top military leader to receive a report on defense posture.
With all the ballots counted, Lee won 49.42% of the nearly 35 million votes cast while conservative rival Kim Moon-soo took 41.15% in the polls that brought the highest turnout for a presidential election since 1997, official data showed.
Lee has said he would address urgent economic challenges facing the country on the first day in office with a focus on the cost-of-living concerns affecting middle and low-income families and the struggles of small business owners.
He also faces a deadline set by the White House on negotiating import duties that Washington has blamed for a large trade imbalance between the countries.
South Korean stocks rallied on Wednesday morning, with the benchmark KOSPI rising more than 2% to its highest in 10 months, with the financial sector leading the gain on expectations of market reform by Lee. Renewable energy stocks also rose. Lee has pledged a shift to a greener energy mix.
'DEAL WITH TRUMP'
The government under a caretaker acting president had made little progress in trying to assuage crushing tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump that would hit some of the country's major industries, including autos and steel.
"President Lee will find himself with little to no time to spare before tackling the most important task of his early presidency: reaching a deal with Trump," the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Lee on his election win and said the countries "share an ironclad commitment" to their alliance grounded on shared values, and deep economic ties.
He also said that the countries were "modernizing the Alliance to meet the demands of today's strategic environment and address new economic challenges."
The White House said the election of Lee was "free and fair" but the United States remained concerned and opposed to Chinese interference and influence in democracies around the world, according to a White House official.
Lee has expressed more conciliatory plans for ties with China and North Korea, in particular singling out the importance of China as a major trading partner while indicating reluctance to take a firm stance on security tensions in the Taiwan strait.
Still, Lee has pledged to continue Yoon's engagement with Japan and said the alliance with the United States is the backbone of South Korea's global diplomacy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
North Korea says South Korea's overtures ‘great miscalculation'
SEOUL: North Korea has no interest in any policy or proposals for reconciliation from South Korea, the powerful sister of its leader Kim Jong Un said on Monday in the first response to South Korean liberal President Lee Jae Myung's peace overtures. Kim Yo Jong, who is a senior North Korean ruling party official and is believed to speak for the country's leader, said Lee's pledge of commitment to South Korea-US security alliance shows he is no different from his hostile predecessor. 'If South Korea expects to reverse all the consequences of (its actions) with a few sentimental words, there could be no greater miscalculation than that,' Kim said in comments carried by official KCNA news agency. Lee, who took office on June 4 after winning a snap election called after the removal of hard-line conservative Yoon Suk Yeol over a failed attempt at martial law, has vowed to improve ties with Pyongyang that had reached the worst level in years. As gestures aimed at easing tensions, Lee suspended loudspeaker broadcasts blasting anti-North propaganda across the border and banned the flying of leaflets by activists that had angered Pyongyang. Kim, the North Korean official, said those moves are merely a reversal of ill-intentioned activities by South Korea that should never have been initiated in the first place. 'In other words, it's not even something worth our assessment,' she said. 'We again make clear the official position that whatever policy is established in Seoul or proposal is made, we are not interested, and we will not be sitting down with South Korea and there is nothing to discuss.' There has been cautious optimism in the South that the North may respond positively and may even show willingness to re-engage in dialogue, particularly after Pyongyang also shut off its loudspeakers, a move Lee said was quicker than expected. Still, Lee, whose government is in the midst of tough negotiations with Washington to avert punishing tariffs that President Donald Trump has threatened against a string of major trading partners, has said US alliance is the pillar of South Korea's diplomacy. 'Through efforts in the areas of politics, economic security and culture, we will strengthen the South Korea-US alliance that was sealed in blood,' Lee said in remarks commemorating the anniversary of the Korean War armistice on Sunday. North Korea also marked the anniversary which it calls victory day with events including a parade in Pyongyang, although state media reports indicated it was at a relatively lesser scale compared to some previous years. The two Koreas, the United States and China, which are the main belligerents in the 1950-53 Korean War, have not signed a peace treaty.
Al Arabiya
3 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Powerful sister of north korean leader kim rejects south korea's appeasement overture
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un rebuffed an appeasement overture by South Korea's new liberal government, saying Monday that North Korea has no interests in talks with South Korea, no matter what proposal its rival offers. Kim Yo-jong's comments suggest, again, that North Korea, now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia, has no intentions of returning to diplomacy with South Korea and the US anytime soon. But experts said North Korea could change its course if it thinks it cannot maintain the same booming ties with Russia when the Russia-Ukraine war nears an end. 'We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it, and there is neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed with South Korea,' Kim Yo-jong said in a statement carried by state media. It's North Korea's first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, which took office in early June. In an effort to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea, Lee's government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border, and repatriated North Koreans who drifted south in wooden boats months earlier. Kim Yo-jong called such steps 'sincere efforts' by Lee's government to develop ties. But she said the Lee government won't be much different from its predecessors, citing what it calls their 'blind trust' to the alliance with the US and attempt to 'stand in confrontation' with North Korea. She mentioned August's annual South Korea-US military drills in August, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal. North Korea has been shunning talks with South Korea and the US since leader Kim Jong-un's high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals. North Korea now prioritizes cooperation with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine, likely in return for economic and military assistance. South Korea, the US, and others say Russia may give North Korea sensitive technologies that can enhance its nuclear and missile programs. Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with Kim Jong-un and expressed intent to resume diplomacy with him. But North Korea hasn't publicly responded to Trump's overture. In early 2024, Kim Jong-un ordered the rewriting of the constitution to remove the long-running state goal of a peaceful Korean unification and cement South Korea as an invariable principal enemy. That caught many foreign experts by surprise because it was seen as eliminating the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided Koreas and breaking away with his predecessors' long-cherished dreams of peacefully achieving a unified Korea on the North's terms. Many experts say Kim likely aims to guard against South Korean cultural influence and bolster his family's dynastic rule. Others say Kim wants legal room to use his nuclear weapons against South Korea by making it a foreign enemy state, not a partner for potential unification, which shares a sense of national homogeneity.
Arab News
5 hours ago
- Arab News
Russia starts direct commercial flights between Moscow and Pyongyang
MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday opened a regular air link between Moscow and Pyogyang, a move reflecting increasingly close ties between the two countries. The first flight operated by Russian carrier Nordwind took off from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport carrying over 400 passengers. Russia's Transport Ministry said there will be one flight a month to meet demand. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who visited North Korea's new Wonsan-Kalma beach resort earlier this month to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, promised to encourage Russian tourists to visit the complex. The resort, which can accommodate nearly 20,000 people, is at the center of Kim's push to boost tourism to improve his country's troubled economy. North Korea has been slowly easing the curbs imposed during the pandemic and reopening its borders in phases. But the country hasn't said if it would fully resume international tourism. Regular flights between Russia's eastern port city of Vladivostok and Pyongyang reopened in 2023 following a break caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Russia and North Korea have sharply expanded military and other ties in recent years, with Pyongyang supplying weapons and troops to back Russia's military action in Ukraine.
