Senior politicians and former lawmakers gathered Sunday in Seoul to pay final respects to Lee Ki-taek, late opposition leader who spearheaded the pro-democracy movement that led to the resignation of South Korea’s first president Syngman Rhee.

The seventh-term lawmaker, who died on Saturday at the age of 79, entered politics after launching a student-led campaign in his college to topple the late president in the wake of his bid to extend the tenure beyond the constitution.

“I heard that he looked very happy only yesterday after finishing his memoir that he spent almost six years on,” said Lee’s former aide Park Gye-dong, former lawmaker, said at the funeral service in downtown Seoul. Lee died of natural causes.

Since being elected as a lawmaker at the age of 30, Lee has left his own imprint on the nation’s turbulent political scene. He built his political faction that rivaled other opposition groups led by late presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.