Politicians, lawmakers pay tribute to former opposition leader

Senior politicians and former lawmakers gathered Sunday in Seoul to pay final respects to Lee Ki-taek, late opposition leader who spearheaded the pro-democracy movement that led to the resignation of South Korea’s first president Syngman Rhee.

The seventh-term lawmaker, who died on Saturday at the age of 79, entered politics after launching a student-led campaign in his college to topple the late president in the wake of his bid to extend the tenure beyond the constitution.

“I heard that he looked very happy only yesterday after finishing his memoir that he spent almost six years on,” said Lee’s former aide Park Gye-dong, former lawmaker, said at the funeral service in downtown Seoul. Lee died of natural causes.

Since being elected as a lawmaker at the age of 30, Lee has left his own imprint on the nation’s turbulent political scene. He built his political faction that rivaled other opposition groups led by late presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.

Mourners pay respect to late Lee Ki-taek at a funeral service in Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital in Seoul on Sunday. Yonhap

Having protested against Korea’s authoritarian government during the ’70s and ’80s, Lee joined forces with the two Kims in 1987 when former President Roh Tae-woo accepted the constitutional changes allowing direct presidential elections.

But Lee defected from the coalition after Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung clashed over who should run for the 1987 presidential election. He later created his own opposition party before joining Kim-Dae Jung’s party in 1991.

Though Lee was not reelected a lawmaker since the 1992 general elections, he has served as a senior adviser in conservative parties after endorsing the former President Lee Myung-bak and current President Park Geun-hye.

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)