The daughter of South Korea's assassinated president Park
Chung-hee yesterday launched a bid to be the country's first woman
leader in a race dominated by her main challenger for the
opposition conservative's nomination.
Park Geun-hye will face former Seoul mayor and one-time
construction boss Lee Myung-bak in the Grand National Party (GNP)
primaries in mid-August.
Polls consistently show the winner of that vote should capture
the December 19 presidential election by a landslide against
left-leaning political groups which have so far been unable to form
a cohesive bloc.
"I want to do two things that my father couldn't finish," Park
told a news conference to formally announce her plan to join the
race.
"One is to make South Korea an advanced country, and the other
is to repay all the people who suffered during his time."
Park, 55, led the conservative opposition Grand National Party
through successive parliamentary election victories from 2004 until
quitting last year to prepare for her candidacy.
But she is best known as daughter of Park Chung-hee, a graduate
of Japan's military academy who took power in a military coup in
1961 and ruled the country with an iron fist and a drive for
breakneck economic development until he was shot dead by his
disgruntled spy chief in 1979.
She acted as first lady from 1974 when her mother was killed by
a bullet meant for her father.
Remembered by many South Koreans for human rights abuses under
his rule, Park's father is also admired for helping turn the
country from a poor peasant economy after the 1950-53 Korean War
into an emerging Asian industrial power.
"I won't forget that the way I can repay those people for their
sacrifice is to make democracy flourish further and this country
better off," Park said.
Park advocates small government, corporate tax cuts and pledges
to create 3 million new jobs by 2012.
She has a strong following in the southeast and among older
South Koreans around the country, nostalgic for her father's tough
style of leadership.
But she faces an unhill battle for her party's nomination
against Lee, who has remained far ahead in opinion polls.
The successor to President Roh Moo-hyun will serve a single
five-year term and is expected to oversee a constitutional change
debate to allow future presidents to stand for two four-year
terms.
Park's announcement comes amid deepening disarray in the
pro-government Uri Party, which has lost the formidable majority it
captured in a 2004 parliamentary election.
Nearly 40 members of the party have already quit and up to 50
more are planning to leave in a move analysts see as an attempt to
distance themselves from the unpopular President Roh.
But analysts said their chances of winning the presidency look
increasingly slim.
Roh has suffered low public approval levels since early in his
term, with ratings wavering between 15 and 30 percent for the past
few months.
(China Daily June 12, 2007)
