The leader of the South Korean opposition, Lee Jae Myung, was attacked this Tuesday with an unidentified object during a visit to the port city of Busan, in the southeast of the country, and was taken to hospital with a neck wound while conscious.
Lee, of the Democratic Party (DP), was stabbed in the left side of the neck at around 10:27 a.m. (local time) during a meeting with journalists after visiting the construction of a new airport on Gadeokdo island. The attacker allegedly approached him to ask for an autograph before lunging at him.
After the attack, Lee has been stabilized and transferred to a nearby hospital, while the attacker, who is around 60 years old and posed as a sympathizer, has been detained at the scene, according to the South Korean news agency. Yonhap.
Lee, who was mayor of Seongnam (south) and governor of the most populated province in the country, was scheduled to go to the residence of former South Korean president Moon Jae In (2017-2022) and have lunch together, but the politician has canceled. for the moment your agenda.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has expressed concern for Lee's safety and has ordered relevant authorities to investigate the attack. “Such violence should never be tolerated under any circumstances,” said the president's spokesman, Kim Soo Kyung.
The opposition leader is not currently a member of the country's legislature, but is expected to run in the next general elections that will take place in April 2024 and in the presidential elections in 2027. In 2022 he lost the presidential elections by a difference of less than one percentage point compared to Yoon.
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Since then, he has been accused of corruption and breach of trust. Justice is investigating his alleged participation in an urban corruption scandal in which the money raised would have been used to finance the presidential campaign, an aspect that Lee has denied.
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