Lee Jun-seok
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Lee Jun-seok (Korean: 이준석; born 31 March 1985) is a South Korean politician who has served as the leader of the Reform Party since 2025 and as the member of the National Assembly for Hwaseong B since 2024. The founder of the Reform Party, he was the party's nominee in the 2025 presidential election and had previously served as its leader from January to May 2024. Born in Seoul, Lee graduated from Harvard University in 2007. He entered politics as a relatively young member of the Park Geun-hye presidential administration, during which he served as one of the 11-member Grand National Party's (later renamed Saenuri Party) Executive Leadership Council, the youngest member ever to sit on the Council. After the impeachment of Park in 2016, he left the Saenuri Party and joined the centre-right conservative minor Bareun Party, of which he served as one of the party's Supreme Council members. The Bareun Party merged into the Bareunmirae Party, and Lee's faction of that party later merged with the majority right-wing conservative Party to form the current People Power Party (PPP). In June 2021, the PPP voted Lee as its leader, making him the youngest person in South Korean history to lead the main conservative bloc. As leader of the PPP, Lee led his party to victory in the 2022 presidential election and the 2022 local elections. He has been noted for his staunch antifeminism and support from South Korean idaenam (young men). On 8 July 2022, Lee was given a six-month suspension from the PPP as the result of a bribery and prostitution scandal. Lee was officially removed from party leadership on 9 August. On 20 September, Police decided not to refer Lee to prosecution over sexual bribery charges. On 7 October, Lee's party suspension was extended by a year by the party's ethics committee. On 13 October, police decided not to refer Lee to prosecution over evidence destruction. His suspension from the PPP was removed on 2 November 2023, together with three other politicians' suspensions. Since then, he has left the PPP to establish a new party, the Reform Party. In the 2025 presidential election, Lee was the party's nominee and placed third in the general election.