Do we like Lee Nak-yon?
Our score: 5 out of 10. No harmful words turned up, but the record on LGBTQ+ and climate issues is empty and his 2025 endorsement of a conservative candidate is a real asterisk.
Lee Nak-yon is a five-term lawmaker who went on to serve as prime minister under President Moon Jae-in. He's also a former governor of Jeonnam, the south-western province where he's from. In plain terms, he's an old-school Korean liberal who spent decades inside the Democratic Party machine.
Nothing new on him lately: I couldn't find any reporting from 2026, so the freshest real story is from 2025. Before that, he came home from a year in the US in mid-2023, apologised for being away, and said “I won't leave you alone from now on.” Political watchers read that as a comeback in waiting.
The big stoush is with Lee Jae-myung, his old party colleague. By January 2024, Lee Nak-yon had repeatedly demanded Lee Jae-myung step down as party leader over his legal cases, and he walked out of the Democratic Party to build his own outfit. Lee Jae-myung's reply was that members had to respect the will of the people.
Then came the swerve. On 27 May 2025 he stood up and endorsed People Power Party candidate Kim Moon-soo, saying it was to stop a “monster dictatorship”. He admitted he had regrets about Kim's “extreme views” and ties to “certain religious figures”. He still backed him, and he pitched a coalition government and a shorter presidential term.
The blowback was fierce. The Democratic Party hit back hard, and a group of former Moon administration officials voted to expel him from an advisory post. Jeonnam's current governor and two former governors called his alliance “an unforgivable insult and betrayal to the people of Jeonnam.” Lee's answer was that the party wasn't in a position to lecture him.
On the harm test, I found nothing of his own: no campaigning against LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, and nothing on climate. I also found nothing on how he voted on the anti-discrimination bill. That's a gap, not a clean bill of health. The asterisk is the choice to back a conservative ticket he himself had doubts about, which is a judgement call rather than hate.