Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea’s main opposition party, was stabbed in the neck on Tuesday morning, according to police and live-streamed TV footage.
Mr. Lee, the leader of the liberal Democratic Party, was visiting the southern port city of Busan when an unidentified man stabbed him in the neck with a knife-like weapon, according to the footage. Mr. Lee, 59, had just finished taking questions from reporters after touring the site of a planned airport and passing a crowd of reporters and supporters when he was attacked.
Police in Busan said the assailant was in custody, but did not provide any details about Mr. Lee or the motive of the attack. Mr. Lee was bleeding from the neck before being taken to an ambulance, according to news reports and photos from the scene.
By afternoon, there was still no official statement about Mr. Lee, but local news reports suggested his injury was not life-threatening.
Footage from the attack showed the assailant approaching Mr. Lee by a group of TV camera operators, apparently posing as one of his supporters; he wears a crown headgear that reads “I am Lee Jae-myung.” Supporters and police officers overpowered the man after the attack and took him to a police car.
Mr. Lee was narrowly defeated by Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative, in South Korea’s last presidential election, in 2022. He has since been subject to a series of investigations by state prosecutors on corruption and other criminal charges.
He denied all the charges against him and went on a three-week hunger strike in protest, accusing Mr. Yoon of using the criminal justice system to intimidate his political opponents. A court refused to allow prosecutors to arrest Mr. Lee, but he faces an expected series of trials.
Mr. expressed Yoon of “deep concern” about the safety of Mr. Lee after Tuesday’s attack, which ordered his government to conduct a swift investigation and provide support for the opposition leader’s medical treatment, the president’s office said in a statement.
“The president emphasized that this form of violence should not be tolerated under any circumstances in our society,” the statement said.
South Korean politics have become increasingly polarized in recent years, and resentment between Mr. Yoon and Mr. Lee is on the rise in the run-up to parliamentary elections in April.
But physical attacks on politicians are not uncommon. In 2006, conservative politician Park Geun-hye, then an opposition leader, was hacked in the face by a man who had been a fierce critic of hers. Ms. won. Park in the 2012 presidential election.
In 2015, a self-styled nationalist who expressed anti-American sentiments slashed the face of Mark W. Lippert, then the United States ambassador to South Korea, with a kitchen knife.
