Anchor: The nation is set to elect its 21st president Tuesday.
In the first installment of our series of biographical sketches for presidential candidates, our Bae Joo-yon has more on Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party.

Report: Democratic Party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, who is vying for the presidency for the second time, was born in 1963 in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, to a poor family with seven children.
 
To help his family, Lee started working at a clock factory in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, instead of going to middle school. 

After an industrial accident left him with a twisted arm, Lee went on to study on his own and then majored in law at Chung-Ang University on a full scholarship. 

In 1986, Lee passed the bar exam and began a career as a human rights lawyer before entering politics in August 2005 by joining the Uri Party.

He went on to be elected mayor of Seongnam in 2010 and was reelected in 2014. 

He garnered attention in 2016 when he became the first lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea to call for the end of the Park Geun-hye government when the nation was rattled by an influence-peddling scandal. 

Lee sought to run for president in 2017, but came in third in the party’s primary. 

On the back of public recognition, he was elected governor of Gyeonggi Province in 2018.

He managed to become the party’s presidential candidate for the 20th presidential election in 2022, but lost to Yoon Suk Yeol by just point-76 percentage point. 

In 2022, Lee was elected head of the Democratic Party and led the party to a landslide victory in last year’s general elections. He was reelected party chief that same year. 

Lee has also made headlines due to his legal woes. 

He is currently awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on allegations he violated the Public Official Election Act. 

He was previously found not guilty of pressuring a witness to give false testimony in an election law violation case in February 2019.

Lee emerged as a strong presidential contender in the wake of the December 3 martial law incident, having pushed for the passage of the National Assembly resolution that lifted the martial law decree. 
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.