DP chief vows to remain unbowed after sentence

Liberal Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung vowed at a weekend rally that he would remain unbowed by a court ruling that sentenced him to a suspended one-year prison term for lying on the campaign trail during his 2022 presidential run.

Liberal Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung speaks during an anti-government rally organized by his party in Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Saturday evening. [YONHAP]

Liberal Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung vowed at a weekend rally that he would remain unbowed by a court ruling that sentenced him to a suspended one-year prison term for lying on the campaign trail during his 2022 presidential run.

Speaking at an anti-government rally organized by the DP in central Seoul on Saturday, Lee struck a defiant tone as he promised the party’s supporters he would remain politically active and urged them to continue resisting the Yoon Suk Yeol administration.

“Lee Jae-myung will not die. Democracy will not die. This country’s future will not die,” Lee said, tying his own political fate in stark terms to that of the nation.

In his remarks, the DP leader said he “desires nothing more” than to “become a loyal servant of the people of the country.”

Lee also upped his rhetoric against Yoon as he argued the president’s term “has seen ownership of the country taken away from the people” and handed to first lady Kim Keon Hee and Myung Tae-kyun, a self-proclaimed power broker that Yoon had previously consulted for political help.

The DP leader further called the people present at the rally his “comrades,” a term that carries strong left-wing connotations in Korean.

Lee’s remarks at the rally — the third mass demonstration organized by the DP to demand the approval of a special counsel probe into various allegations against Kim — signaled his determination to underscore the DP’s own suspicions regarding the Yoon administration while maintaining his innocence in public.

Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung, center, floor leader Park Chan-dae, left, and other party officials shout slogans during an anti-government rally in Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Saturday. [YONHAP]

The day before the rally, the Seoul Central District Court ruled that Lee was guilty of making false statements on the campaign trail, thereby violating the Public Official Election Act.

In its decision, the court said that Lee had lied by claiming that the Land Ministry had pressured him to rezone the former site of the Korea Food Research Institute in Baekhyeon-dong, Seongnam.

The land was subsequently developed into apartment complexes by a private company, leading to allegations that Lee rezoned the site to grant preferential treatment to the developer.

Lee’s suspended sentence of one year in prison, if upheld, would force him out of the National Assembly and bar him from running in the 2027 presidential election.

After the sentence was pronounced, Lee told reporters gathered outside the courthouse that he planned to appeal.

He argued that he found “even the basic facts” presented at the ruling “difficult to accept.”

However, Lee’s comments after the ruling and at Saturday’s rally were criticized by the conservative People Power Party (PPP), which released a statement accusing him of undermining the country’s judiciary and the rule of law.

On Sunday, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon also uploaded a post on Facebook that criticized the DP for passing a law to deprive the state prosecution service of its ability to carry out criminal investigations, which he claimed was intended to prevent prosecutors from properly investigating other allegations against Lee.

The DP leader is also under trial for allegedly pressuring a secretary of former Seongnam Mayor Kim Byung-ryang to give false court testimony in his favor in 2018. A judgment in that case is due on Nov. 25.

“If the prosecution service had been stripped of its investigative powers, as the DP had intended, prosecutors would not have been able to look into suspicions that Lee committed subornation,” he wrote.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]