Asia | Banyan

South Korea’s ruling party bets on an anti-establishment figure

Lee Jae-myung, its candidate for president, presents himself as a man of the people

LAST WEEK the campaign for Lee Jae-myung, who on October 10th was nominated as the ruling Minjoo party’s candidate for president of South Korea, published a striking pair of old photographs. One shows a floppy-haired boy in his early teens in an ill-fitting, oversized factory-worker’s uniform. In the other, a boy of similar age wears a well-cut blue jacket with a pressed white collar and slim red bow tie, his hair neatly trimmed.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Working-class hero”

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