Lee Jae-myung, leader of South Korea’s opposition Democratic Party (DP), was hospitalized on Monday due to deteriorating health from a hunger strike he began almost three weeks ago.
On Wednesday, the South Korean parliament is scheduled to consider two separate motions seeking Lee’s arrest on bribery charges.
Lee, 58, was indicted in March for corruption linked to a billion-dollar property development scandal that took place when he was the mayor of Seongnam, a city south of Seoul. After concluding an 18-month investigation, prosecutors accused Lee of colluding with private property developers to saddle his city with an expensive boondoggle. The developers scored over $611 million in profits from the project, while the city of Seongnam lost over $300 million.
The key developer of the real estate deal, Kim In-seop, was accused of bribing Lee and other city officials to secure the permits and permissions he needed. Lee was involved in several other corruption scandals during his tenure as mayor, and later governor of Gyeonggi province, but the Baekhyeon-dong scandal, named after the district of the city where the development was to take place, became the most serious to follow him into the 2022 presidential election, where he was defeated by conservative Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party (PPP).
Lee is currently a sitting member of the National Assembly, and South Korean law confers immunity upon all lawmakers unless parliamentary consent is granted for their arrest. On Wednesday, two separate motions were introduced asking for Lee’s arrest (and also the sacking of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who has been accused of incompetence on various matters).
Prosecutors tried to arrest Lee in February, but the National Assembly refused the motion to lift his immunity. Lee’s DP party furiously accused President Yoon and his administration of unnecessarily attempting to arrest and prosecute Lee when he has offered to cooperate in the Baekhyeon-dong investigation.
Lee launched a hunger strike on August 31 to protest the Yoon administration’s policies, an unusual demonstration for a politician of his high rank in South Korea. Lee said he was motivated by opposition to Yoon’s economic policies, threats to media freedom, and Yoon’s lax response to Japan’s release of wastewater from the Fukushima reactor, among other issues.
Lee camped in a tent outside the National Assembly building until Monday when he was rushed to the hospital due to complications from his hunger strike.
“Lee’s condition deteriorated rapidly, so we called an ambulance and medics at 6:55 am. He was conscious, but showed signs of slight delirium. His blood sugar had dropped significantly and was dazed,” a DP official said on Monday.
The fasting politician received emergency treatment and was transferred to Seoul’s Green Hospital for long-term care. He vowed to continue the hunger strike from his hospital bed.
“He is determined to take the lead to put an end to this reckless regime,” DP spokesman Han Min-soo said, referring to the Yoon administration.
Left-wing former president Moon Jae-in visited Lee in the hospital on Tuesday and urged him to end his hunger strike, as did PPP head Kim Gi-hyeon, who offered to sit down with Lee and discuss his policy complaints.
“Now is the necessary moment to regain strength and fight in a different approach,” Moon told Lee on Tuesday.
Yoon signed off on the motion to lift Lee’s immunity on Tuesday, and prosecutors said they would proceed with his arrest if given authorization, because the charges against Lee are serious and they fear he might destroy evidence.
“I think we shouldn’t establish a precedent where the justice system is suspended because a suspect either goes on a hunger strike or commits self-inflicted wounds,” Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon said on Monday, voicing concerns that Lee’s starvation diet is a stunt to distract attention from DP corruption scandals.
In April, Lee apologized for yet another bribery scandal, in which former DP lawmaker Song Young-gil allegedly handed out literal envelopes full of cash to secure election as DP leader at the 2021 party convention.
“As a political party in the Republic of Korea that must take profound responsibility for the democratic republic, I apologize once again for disappointing the people and causing them concern,” Lee said, speaking in his capacity as the current DP leader.
