The new South Korean president said she would dedicate herself to uniting her people and improving their livelihoods. “I really thank you. This election is the people’s victory,” Park Geun-hye told a crowd at a Seoul plaza after she won the presidential election Dec. 19.

    Park promises a new era  in South Korea

    A MEMBER of the Conservative Party, Park Geun-hye is the country’s first woman president.

    Addressing crowds in Seoul’s central Gwanghwamun Square, the 60-year-old politician said her win was a victory for the people.

    “I will be a president who keeps pledges,” she said.

    “This is considered a victory for people who want to overcome crises and revive the economy. I will never forget the will of the people who believed in me wherever I went during the election campaign. I would like to re-create the miracle of ‘let’s live well’ so people can worry less about their livelihood and young people can happily go to work.”

    Park was 22 years old when she washed the blood from her assassinated mother’s dress. Five years later, she recalls in her autobiography, she held her father’s blood-soaked shirt after the strongman was shot dead.

    For some South Koreans, it is the memory of Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, that comes to mind when they think of her. His 18-year rule dragged the country out of poverty but at the cost of human rights. He is still a controversial figure in the now-prosperous industrial power.

    But it is recollections of her mother, Yuk Young-soo, once known as “the mother of the nation,” that may be a more important reason why Park has been propelled into the presidential Blue House.

    Yuk is remembered for acts of charity that included a famous visit to a leper colony where she shook hands and embraced the sick. She remains South Korea’s most popular first lady by far, polls show.

    For many South Koreans, Park’s frugal lifestyle in a modest home in the capital, Seoul, as well as her simple clothes and 1970s hairstyle bring her mother to mind.

    “Park looks like her mother, when she greets people and smiles,” one supporter, Lee Young-ho said, sitting under the curved roof of Yuk’s old home in the town of Okcheon, where she lived until she married Park.

    Although her family’s story is so well known, woven as it is into the fabric of the country’s modern history, Park herself, who made two previous bids to win the party’s presidential nomination, is deeply private and cautious about her politics.

    She is unmarried and has no children, saying that her life will be devoted to her country.

    She disappeared from public life in 1979 after the assassination of her father by his intelligence chief, only to resurface in 1997 to “help save” the country from the devastating Asian financial crisis.

    Before this campaign she had never clearly defined her policies on issues such as taxation, spending and welfare. She says she shares her mother’s vision of a more equal society and has pledged to work for that.

    “It was my mother’s dream and her dream is now mine,” she said at a special memorial service held for her mother this month.

    Deeply influenced by her family background and constantly threatened by assassination warnings, Park has walked her way to a chair in Chong Wa Dae.

    Her rival, liberal candidate Moon Jae-in of the Democratic United Party, conceded victory on Wednesday night, according to South Korean network YTN.

    South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak congratulated Park on her win, which comes at a time of rising economic anxiety for the nation.

    When Moon’s concession speech was made, Park was leading with 51.66% of the vote, to 47.91% for her rival Moon, with more than 94% of the vote counted, election officials said.

    The election appeared to be a showdown of generations. Park enjoys broad support from older Koreans in their 50s and 60s, while Moon has strong support from younger Koreans.

    U.S. President Barack Obama sent a message of congratulations to Park on Wednesday.

    “I look forward to working closely with the Park Administration to further enhance our extensive cooperation with the Republic of Korea on a wide range of important bilateral, regional and global issues,” he said. “The U.S.-ROK alliance serves as a lynchpin of peace and security in the Asia Pacific, and our two nations share a global partnership with deep economic, security, and people-to-people ties.”

    Park will assume office in February 2013, in a country grappling with income inequality, angst over education and employment prospects for its youth, and strained relations with North Korea.

    As what she constantly emphasizes in her speech, she promised to implement more social welfare polices and engage with North Korea if it abandons its nuclear weapons program.

    Park has called for reforming South Korea’s powerful family-run “chaebol” conglomerates but to a degree that regulations do not discourage them from investments. She says her government will toughen penalties for corporate crimes and prohibit new “cross-holding” practices that allow a handful of people to control all subsidiaries under a single conglomerate.

    Park says she will nearly triple government spending aimed at supporting small and mid-size companies and promises to increase the country’s budget on research and development to 5 percent of the entire GDP by the end of her single, five-year tenure.

    Park promises to increase the nation’s middle class to 70 percent of the entire population and create massive funds to help more than 3 million South Koreans unable to pay off their debts. Park says she will halve college tuition fees through financial support for students and make sure that a family’s third child can go to college without paying tuition, part of her solution to a low birthrate haunting the country’s future.

    Park also says her government will provide each person aged 65 or above with a monthly pension of about US$180 and provide 50,000 new jobs for retired people while making medical care free for some of the most serious illnesses such as cancer.

    As for the political reforms, Park says she will allow special prosecutors to operate independently throughout her tenure to crack down on political corruption. She also calls for laws that force politicians convicted of corruption to pay 30 times the amount they illegally acquired and ban them from being elected for two decades.

    She also says she will push for laws aimed at compensating victims under past military governments, including the one led by her father.

    Park opposes the abolishment of capital punishment, saying it helps prevent serious crimes such as sexual assault and murder.

    Unlike Lee Myung-bak’s current stands towards North Korea, Park says she’s open to dialogue with the neighboring country’s leadership but says large-scale aid depends on whether Pyongyang pushes ahead with dismantling its nuclear arms program. She says dialogue between the Koreas should resume in order to resolve a nuclear stalemate and to build trust needed to restore civilian exchanges.

    Park promises to toughen South Korea’s military to deter North Korean provocations and calls for dealing with Pyongyang in close cooperation with the United States. She demands that Pyongyang apologize for its artillery attack on a South Korean island and the alleged sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010, attacks that left 50 South Koreans dead. Pyongyang denies attacking the ship and blames the South Korean military’s live-fire drills as a trigger for its artillery attack.

    Park has expressed hope for jointly developing natural resources in North Korea and setting up liaison offices in both Pyongyang and Seoul for dialogue. Park says humanitarian aid for North Korea should continue regardless of political situations.

    Widely criticized for being the “daughter of a dictator” and not actively supporting Lee Myung-bak’s administration, Park has to face many unsettled issues and a sluggish economy both at home and abroad.

    “Whether you are for or against me, I want to hear your opinions,” Park promised, “I’ll take care of our people one-by-one.”(SD-Agencies)