The Lee Myung-bak government is sixth consecutive government of the Sixth Republic of South Korea

Sixth Republic of South Korea

The Sixth Republic of South Korea is the country's present-day government. It began in 1987, with the transfer of power from the authoritarian Fifth Republic of Chun Doo-hwan....

. It was officially launched on February 25th, 2008, under Lee Myung-bak

Lee Myung-bak

Lee Myung-bak is the President of South Korea. Prior to his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction and the mayor of Seoul. He is married to Kim Yoon-ok and has three daughters and one son. His older brother is Lee Sang-deuk, a South Korean politician. He attends the...

's victory in the 2007 presidential election

South Korean presidential election, 2007

The 17th South Korean presidential election took place on 19 December 2007. The election was won by Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, returning conservatives to the Blue House for the first time in ten years...

. The other previous governments named after the socio-political value that they associate the most (for example, the Participation government of Roh Mu-hyun and the Civilian government of Kim Young-sam

Kim Young-sam

Kim Young-sam was a South Korean politician and democratic activist. From 1961, he spent 30 years as South Korea's leader of the opposition, and one of Park Chung-hee's most powerful rivals....

), but because the previous naming pattern was obsolete and the administration's slogan practicality (실용) was uninspiring and obscure, the Grand National Party

Grand National Party

The Grand National Party is a conservative political party in South Korea. Its Korean name, Hannara, has a double meaning as "Great National" and "Korean National." The GNP holds a majority of seats in the 18th Assembly, lasting from 2008 to 2012....

 officially named the government after a name of a president for the first time. The other term for Lee Myung-bak government is Practical government (실용정부) from Lee Myung-bak's campaign slogan during the 2007 presidential election season.

The provisional committee right before the Lee Myung-bak government reformed the governmental institutions to make it into a small government. The main objective of this government is "under the foundation of micro-government and macro-market ideas to revive the economy".
As of late 2011, there has been alleged corruption of certain high ranking associates of the president, which reportedly has 'stunned' President Lee.

Housing

The government plan to stabilize the mortgage crisis was through LH's extensive projects to construct more residential areas. Between 2009 and 2010, the government has made available 311,000 new apartments, which resulted in capping housing price increases to just 1.2 ~ 1.7%.
However, there has been accusations that the plan could lead to huge deficits, and that of late 2011, the number of rental available units had been cut in half, although this was because most of the new units were designated to be sold, not rented

Challenges

• Criticism of Lee Myung-bak's Mbnomics approach to the South Korean economy consists of allegations that they catered towards big business, the unchanged status of the unemployment crisis, and rises in the income gap.
• The average income of South Koreans has decreased and the average price of consumers' products has increased during the three years of this administration.
• All of the basic consumers' items according to the MB Consumers' Price Rate (Korean:MB물가지수) has been increased by 23% on average in 3 years since the beginning of the administration.
• There is an allegation how the Lee Myung-bak government manipulated the unemployment rate to make it lower to the South Korean public. The Korea Development Institute
  Korea Development Institute
  The Korea Development Institute is an autonomous economic policy think tank that was set up by the South Korean government. The Institute was founded in 1971, during a period of fast economic growth, to provide research and analysis of economic policy decisions...
  
   released a statement on October 27th, 2011 that the potential unemployment rate of this time by using the survey method of the International Labour Organization
  International Labour Organization
  The International Labour Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues pertaining to international labour standards. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. Its secretariat — the people who are employed by it throughout the world — is known as the...
  
   is approximately 21.2% - compare to the government's statistics: 4.8%.

Buddhism

The Lee Myung-bak government often in at odds with the Buddhist establishment in South Korea. The government-led plan to complete building the Wonhyo

Wonhyo

Wonhyo was one of the leading thinkers, writers and commentators of the Korean Buddhist tradition. Essence-Function , a key concept in East Asian Buddhism and particularly that of Korean Buddhism, was refined in the syncretic philosophy and worldview of Wonhyo.As one of the most eminent...

 Pilgrimage Trail in 2015 had started in January 2009 but it was arbitrarily stopped in July 2010.

Internet Wiretapping

46 packet-tapping devices have been bought as tools for domestic internet surveillance since the beginning of the administration. Many of these devices are operated under the National Intelligence Service

National Intelligence Service (South Korea)

The National Intelligence Service is the chief intelligence agency of South Korea. The agency was officially established in 1961 as the Korea Central Intelligence Agency , during the rule of President Park Chung-hee's military Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, which displaced the...

.

Social Network Services

The ruling Great National Party once tried to pass a law to reform the domestic telecommunication services; later given up due to a potential internet censorship.

Free Trade Agreement Disputes

The government-affiliated GNP had controversially ratified the South Korea–United States Free Trade Agreement bill in the National Assembly on November 22nd, 2011. GNP floor leader Hwang Woo-yeo had decided to ratify it 2 days earlier due to a noticeable deadlock from the disagreements of the oppositions. The original deadline date was November 24th. During the ratification of the bill, the National Assembly was intentionally sealed off from the public and the mass media under the decision of Park Hee-tae, a GNP-affiliated Speaker of the National Assembly. The Deputy Speaker under Park Hee-tae, Chung Ui-hwa, said that the two main reasons for concealing the National Assembly in advance are to prevent any radical uproar from the oppositions and to prevent the international media coverage from showing the negative image of South Korean politics as a laughing stock.