Lee Jun-seok

South Korean politician (born 1985)

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이준석

Leader of the New Reform Party

Incumbent

Assumed office
20 January 2024Preceded byOffice establishedLeader of the People Power PartyIn office
11 June 2021 – 9 August 2022^[1]DeputyHan Ki-ho
(Secretary-General)Preceded byHwang Kyo-ahn
Kim Gi-hyeon (interim)Succeeded byJoo Ho-young (interim)Member of the National Assembly

Incumbent

Assumed office
30 May 2024Preceded byLee Won-wookConstituencyHwaseong B Personal detailsBorn (1985-03-31) 31 March 1985 (age 39)
Seongdong, Seoul, South KoreaCitizenshipSouth KoreanPolitical partyNew Reform Party^[2]Other political
affiliationsGNP (2011–2012)
Saenuri (2012–2016)
Bareun (2017–2018)
Bareunmirae (2018–2020)
People Power (2020–2023)
Independent (2023–2024)Alma materHarvard University (BA)Signature

NicknameAndy Lee

李俊錫
Hangul	이준석
Hanja	李俊錫
Revised Romanization	Lee Junseok
McCune–Reischauer	Lee Chunsŏk

Jun-seok Andy Lee (Korean: 이준석; Hanja: 李俊錫; born 31 March 1985) is a South Korean politician who served as party leader of the conservative New Reform Party since January 2024.

Lee entered politics as a relatively young member of the Park Geun-hye presidential administration, during which he served as one of the 11-member Grand National Party’s (later renamed Saenuri Party) Executive Leadership Council, the youngest member ever to sit on the Council.^[3] After the impeachment of Park in 2016, he left the Saenuri Party and joined the centre-right conservative minor Bareun Party, of which he served as one of the party's Supreme Council members. The Bareun Party would merge into the Bareunmirae Party, and Lee's faction of that party later merged with the majority right-wing conservative Party to form the current People Power Party.^[4]

In June 2021, the conservative People Power Party voted to select Lee Jun-seok as its leader, making him the youngest person in South Korean history to lead the main conservative bloc.^[5] As leader of the People Power Party, Lee led his party to victory in the 2022 presidential election and the 2022 local elections. He has been noted for his staunch anti-feminism and support from South Korean idaenam.^[6]^[7]

On 8 July 2022, Lee was given a six-month suspension from the People Power Party as the result of a bribery and prostitution scandal.^[8] Lee was officially removed from party leadership on 9 August.^[1] On 20 September, Police decided not to refer Lee to prosecution over sexual bribery charges.^[9] On 7 October, Lee's party suspension was extended by a year by the party's ethics committee.^[10] On 13 Octobrr, police decided not to refer Lee to prosecution over evidence destruction.^[11]

His suspension from the People Power Party was removed on 2 November 2023, together with 3 other politicians' suspensions.^[12] Since then, he has left the People Power Party to establish a new party, the New Reform Party.

Early life

On 31 March 1985, Jun-Seok Lee was born at Hanyang University Hospital in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, between his father, Su-Wol Lee, previous head of the global institutional sales team at Shinhan Bank, and Hyang-Ja Kim, his mother who was a teacher at Andong Girls' High School.^[13] During his adolescent years, he lived in a semi-basement house in Sanggye-dong, an impoverished neighbourhood where the housing price was the cheapest. A few years later, his family eventually moved to a middle-class district Hanshin Village in Sanggye-dong and lived there for ten years. After his father was assigned overseas, he stayed in Singapore and Indonesia for one year.^[14]^[15]

When he returned to Korea, he settled in Mok-dong and graduated from Wolchon Middle School. After graduating from Middle School, he mainly lived in a dormitory due to academic reasons. Now he returned to Sanggye-dong after 20 years.^[14]^[15] During his time at Seoul Science High School, Lee Jun-Seok served as the vice president of the student council. In March 2003, he was accepted at KAIST as a Math major but withdrew admission right after receiving his Harvard acceptance letter and full-ride presidential science scholarship.^[16]

After graduating from Harvard University in 2007, Lee Jun Seok returned to Korea to perform military duties working as a software developer (alternative military service as industrial technical personnel) at ‘Innotive’, an image browsing software startup, a subsidiary of Nexon. While on duty, Lee Jun Seok established a non-profit organization called Edushare ‘Society of Sharing Education’ and became its acting representative.^[17]

After completing his national service, Lee Jun Seok prepared to start his own venture. He received funding from the venture startup program backed by the SME (Small & Medium Enterprise) Ministry on 5 August 2011 and founded Classe Studio: an ed-tech startup that developed personalized tutoring software and workplace training applications.^[18]

Political career

Lee Jun Seok had an interview with Park Geun-Hye, the head of Grand National Party’s emergency response committee, who visited ‘Edushare’ in November 2011 for 2 hours.^[19] Also, he was introduced as a 「venture entrepreneur in his 20s who graduated from Harvard University」 on 29 December. Then, Lee Jun Seok was recruited to the emergency response committee of the Grand National Party.^[20]

After being appointed as a member of the emergency response committee, Lee Jun Seok attracted people's attention with his eloquence in debate. He increased his public recognition by appearing on various TV Shows. Then, Lee Jun Seok ran for the election of members of the National Assembly in 2016 in Sanggyeo-dong against Ahn Cheol-Su (the running candidate for Presidential primary) but eventually ended up losing.^[21]

Lee Jun Seok was nicknamed as ‘Park Geun-Hye Kid’, but he stood up for the impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye since October 2016. Lee Jun Seok parted ways with Saenuri Party and established a new political party, named Baruen Party with Yoo Seong-min.^[22] In 2018, Lee Jun Seok ran for the election of members of the National Assembly, but he lost the election. Before the 21st election of members of the National Assembly, Lee Jun Seok was appointed as a youth supreme representative in Future Unification Party.^[23]

After seeing a taxi driver setting fire to himself in the National Assembly, Lee acquired a taxi driver's license and worked as a taxi driver for 12 hours daily for two months in March and April of the year 2019.^[24] Even though Lee Jun Seok never won an election, he lived as a political commentator, media host for 10 years, appearing on both entertainment and political TV Shows.

Leader of the People Power Party

In 2021, Lee Jun Seok ran for the election to select the representative of the People Power Party. He became popular in the 20s and 30s due to his opposing stance against political correctness such as "faux feminism," introducing reforms supporting meritocracy rather than outright equality of outcome.^[25] Lee Jun Seok lost the partial election in party member vote to candidate Na Kyung-won, but won the main election, recording 43.82 percent (93,390 votes) including votes from the Public Opinion Poll.^[26] As a result, Lee Jun Seok was elected as the leader of the People Power Party and he is the youngest to represent the main conservative bloc in Korean political history.

Lee has a negative stance on affirmative action.^[27]^[28] He is rated as having Idaenam as his main support.^[7]

Lee's conflict with Yoon

On November 29, 2021, Lee posted a Facebook post saying "If that is the case, this is it," with another post showing a text emoji of a smiling face and a thumbs-down gesture, and has refused to answer on the phone and has been avoiding the press until December 3. The move is considered to be a protest against Yoon Seok-youl ignoring him as leader of the party.^[29] The feud was resolved by their meeting in Ulsan on December 3.^[30]

Ethics investigation, suspension, and ousting

On 22 April 2022, the People Power Party opened an ethics violation complaint against Lee Jun-seok for an allegation of sexual favours in 2013. Lee denied the allegation and filed a lawsuit against the YouTube channel that made the allegation. Lee is the first chairman in the history of the country’s main conservative party to be referred to the ethics committee for review while still in office.^[31]

On 8 July 2022, the ethics commission of the People Power Party sentenced Lee to a 6-month suspension of party activities and from his role as party leader. Lee's suspension will end on 8 January 2023. The subject of the committee's deliberation was the alleged attempts of Lee and Kim Cheol-keun, the head of the party’s political affairs office, to destroy evidence. Kim Cheol-keun was handed a two-year suspension from party activities for destroying evidence of Lee Jun-seok's acceptance of sexual favours and bribery.^[8]

On 9 August, Lee was automatically removed from party leadership. Joo Ho-young took over as interim party leader on the following day.^[1]

On 20 September, Police decided not to refer Lee to prosecution over sexual bribery charges.^[9]

On 7 October, Lee's suspension was extended by an extra year by the People Power Party's ethics committee.^[10]

On 13 October, Police concluded footage that allegedly proved Lee Jun-seok received sexual favors never existed, thus proving Lee did not destroy it to clear his name, and police decided not to refer Lee to prosecution over evidence destruction.^[11]

Lee’s suspension was removed, along with other politicians such as Hong Joon-pyo, on 2 November 2023.^[12]

New Reform Party

On 20 January 2024, Lee founded the New Reform Party.

On 10 April 2024, he was elected as a member of the National Assembly for the first time, winning against the odds. His victory was unexpected, as Lee moved to his new constituency only weeks before the election. However, thanks to his main opponent's controversies, and his wholehearted election campaign, he won the seat by a majority of 2.68% or 3278 votes.

Criticism

Lee is considered a moderate conservative within the PPP on most issues but has attracted controversy due to his stances on some issues. Lee drew strong support from idaenam anti-feminist young men and Lee has stated that feminism has a totalitarian inclination.^[32] Na Kyung-won, a leading female politician in the PPP, described Lee's politics as "Trumpism."^[33]

Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party presidential candidate in the 2022 presidential election, said Lee Jun-seok's political popularity was the result of the public's desire for political reform, but also expressed concern that such aspirations could risk heading toward far-right populism.^[34]^[35] South Korean liberal newspaper Hankyoreh also compared Lee Joon-seok to Donald Trump, analyzing that there may be many differences in the political direction of the two, but the background of their dissatisfaction with the established system is similar.^[36]

Authored books

People's Power party's Chairperson Lee Jun-seok signed Lee's book "Fair Competition" brought by a student.

Lee Jun-seok (11 April 2012). 어린 놈이 정치를? : 이준석이 말하는 issue 25 (in Korean). Seoul: jcontentree M&B. ISBN 978-89-6456-168-3.
Lee Jun-seok, Sohn Ah-ram (5 March 2018). 그 의견에는 동의합니다 : 보수와 진보의 새로운 아이콘, 좌우의 간극과 그 접점을 이야기하다 (in Korean). Paju: book21. ISBN 978-89-509-7394-0.
Lee Jun-seok (28 June 2019). 공정한 경쟁 : 대한민국 보수의 가치와 미래를 묻다 (in Korean). Seoul: 나무옆의자. ISBN 979-11-6157-061-7.

Election results

General elections

Year	Constituency	Political party	Votes (%)	Remarks
2016	Nowon C	Saenuri	32,285 (31.32%)	Defeated
2018	Nowon C	Bareunmirae	25,001 (27.23%)	Defeated
2020	Nowon C	United Future	46,373 (44.36%)	Defeated
2024	Hwaseong B	New Reform	51,856 (42.41%)	Elected

References

^ ^a ^b ^c 박재연 (10 August 2022). "이준석 "가처분 신청 접수했다"... 비대위 전환에 반발". 한국일보 (in Korean). Retrieved 23 October 2022.
^ "Ex-PPP Chief Leaves Party, Declares Creation of His New Party". 27 December 2023.
^ 26-year-old grabs spotlight among new GNP leaders
^ "Who is the new young leader of conservative People Power Party?". 11 June 2021.
^ "South Korea Opposition Picks Harvard Graduate to Lead Push to Power". Bloomberg.com. 11 June 2021.
^ Arin, Kim (6 September 2021). "[Us and Them] Lee Jun-seok and the rise of anti-feminism". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
^ ^a ^b "'안티페미' 목청 올리는 이준석 정치적 영토 '이대남' 챙기기?". JoongAng Ilbo. 22 November 2021. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
^ ^a ^b "PPP ethics panel hands party leader Lee Jun-seok 6-month suspension".
^ ^a ^b "[단독]경찰, 이준석 성접대 의혹 수사 불송치…알선수재 무혐의 결론". nocutnews (in Korean). 20 September 2022. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
^ ^a ^b Chung, Esther (7 October 2022). "PPP suspends Lee Jun-seok again". Korea JoongAng Daily. Archived from the original on 23 October 2022. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
^ ^a ^b "Lee Jun-seok investigation hits another dead end". Korea Herald. 20 October 2022. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
^ ^a ^b "국민의힘 홍준표, 이준석 징계 취소 결정". TBC News (in Korean). 2 November 2023. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
^ "상계동 반지하서 국민의힘 대표로...사진으로 본 이준석의 36년". JoongAng Ilbo (in Korean). 11 June 2021. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
^ ^a ^b "노원신문". nowon.newsk.com. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
^ ^a ^b "표창원, 새누리당 전 비대위원 이준석을 파헤치다". Naver News (in Korean). Retrieved 27 June 2021.
^ "이준석 비대위원, 학력의혹에 하버드大 학생증 공개". Money Today (in Korean). 6 January 2012. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
^ "이준석이 '정치하는 이유'…"교육으로 공정한 경쟁할 수 있게 하겠다"". ChosunBiz (in Korean). 4 June 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ "박근혜가 '20대 벤처사업가' 이준석에 끌린 이유". The Korea Economic Daily (in Korean). 15 January 2012. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ "이준석, 박근혜에 반한 이유는…"2시간 토론 감동받아 2년 바쳤다"". 뉴스컬처 (in Korean). 14 March 2018. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ "[서화숙의 만남] 새누리당 비상대책위원 이준석". Hankook Ilbo (in Korean). 22 April 2012. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ 이, 승우 (24 January 2016). "'박근혜 키드' 이준석, '안철수 대항마'로 노원병 출마(종합)". Yonhap News Agency (in Korean). Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ "[월간중앙 직격 인터뷰] '청년 보수 아이콘' 떠오른 이준석 바른미래당 최고위원". JoongAng Ilbo (in Korean). 25 September 2018. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ 추, 하영 (15 May 2020). "[1번지 현장] 이준석 미래통합당 최고위원에게 묻는 포스트 총선". Yonhap News Agency (in Korean). Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ 이, 형민 (2 March 2019). "조금 식상한 '택시기사 이준석' "쇼 아닙니다, 택시산업 갈등 풀어보려고…"". m.kmib.co.kr (in Korean). Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ "'돌풍의 진원지' 2030세대는 왜 이준석에 열광했나". The Korea Economic Daily (in Korean). 11 June 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ "(영상)(국민의힘 전대)이준석 국민의힘 당 대표 선출 9만3392표, 나경원 7만9151표(종합)". www.newstomato.com. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
^ "이준석의 할당제 폐지론…"남녀 같이 100m 뛰자는게 아냐"". Yonhap News Agency (in Korean). 6 June 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
^ "이준석 '할당제 폐지' 공약은 공정할까". KuKiNews (in Korean). 26 June 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
^ "[Newsmaker] People Power Party's turmoil continues with chairman AWOL". The Korea Herald. 1 December 2021.
^ "Yoon, Lee agree to resolve their feud, work together for election victory". Yonhap News Agency. 3 December 2021.
^ "People Power Party convenes ethics committee over claims Lee Jun-seok accepted sexual favors". 22 April 2022.
^ "'이대남'이 밀어올린 이준석 돌풍". 서울경제 (in Korean). 14 June 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ "나경원·이준석, '트럼피즘' 격돌…"분열의 정치"vs"트럼프 비유 교묘"". 이데일리 (in Korean). 1 June 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ 이재명 "이준석 열풍, 극우 포퓰리즘으로 흐를까 우려돼" [Lee Jae-myung said, "I'm worried that Lee Joon-seok's craze will lead to far-right populism."]. The Korea Economic Daily (in Korean). 4 June 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ 이재명, ‘이준석 돌풍’에 “분열을 에너지 삼으면 극우 포퓰리즘 돼” [Regarding the 'Lee Joon-seok gust', Lee Jae-myung said, "If we use division as energy, it becomes far-right populism."]. 조선일보 (in Korean). 4 June 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ 이준석 대표 탄생, 세대교체인가 포퓰리즘인가 [Lee Joon-seok was born as the leader of the party. Is this a generational shift or populism?]. 한겨레 (in Korean). 12 June 2021. Retrieved 24 September 2021.