An enemy’s fall frees up South Korea’s leader. Now comes the tough part

SEOUL - When a South Korean court sentenced a former president to life imprisonment this week, convicting him of masterminding an insurrection, it immediately removed one cloud hanging over the country’s current leader, Lee Jae Myung.

Anything less than ​a conviction ​would have been a political disaster for Mr Lee, who was a political opponent of his convicted predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol. If Yoon had been cleared of​ the insurrection charge, he and his hard-right followers would have challenged the legitimacy of the impeachment - and by extension, ​Lee’s election, which it had made possible.