SOUTH Korean centre-left opposition leader Lee Jae Myung was stabbed in the neck today during a visit to the south-eastern city of Busan.

Mr Lee, who heads the main opposition Democratic Party, was airlifted to a Seoul hospital for surgery after receiving emergency treatment in Busan.

He was conscious after the attack and was not in a critical condition, police and emergency officials said.

The attack happened as Mr Lee walked through a crowd after a tour of the proposed site of a new airport. The attacker approached him, saying that he wanted the politician’s autograph, and then stabbed him in the left side of his neck, police said.

They added that Democratic Party officials had quickly subdued the attacker before officers detained him.

Police said the suspect had told investigators that he intended to kill the politician.

The Democratic Party called the incident “a terrorist attack on Lee and a serious threat to democracy.”

Mr Lee lost the 2022 presidential election to current incumbent Yoon Suk Yeol by 0.7 percentage points, the narrowest margin ever recorded.

Last year, Mr Lee staged a 24-day hunger strike in protest at Mr Yoon’s failure to oppose Japan’s release of treated radioactive wastewater from its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, the president’s economic policies and his hard-line approach to North Korea.