South Korean opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung was attacked on Tuesday while talking to reporters in the port city of Busan, Yonhap news agency reported.
Images aired on South Korean television channels showed Lee on the ground as someone pressed a handkerchief on his neck.
Video on social media appeared to show a man wearing a blue paper crown lunge at Lee and hit him with something in the neck as Lee was speaking to a crowd of reporters. Lee then appears to collapse as multiple people, including cameramen, crowd around him.
Lee was conscious as he was taken to hospital, and the unidentified assailant was arrested at the scene, Yonhap reported.
Busan’s emergency office said Lee was visiting the construction site of a new airport, The Associated Press reported.
Chief of the Democratic Party, Lee lost to conservative Yoon Suk Yeol in a tight presidential race last year.
President Yoon expressed “deep concern” about the attack, his spokesperson said.
A former child factory worker who suffered an industrial accident as a teenage school drop-out, Lee rose to political stardom partly by playing up his rags-to-riches tale.
But his bid for the top office has been overshadowed by a string of scandals.
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