At 49, Park Geun Hye is the same age her mother was when she was cut down by an assassin"s bullet at a ceremony in 1974 to mark the anniversary of liberation from Japanese colonial rule. Five years later her controversial father Park Chung Hee, who ruled South Korea for nearly two decades, was shot dead by his intelligence chief.That would be enough to keep most people out of public life. But the daughter felt duty-bound to enter politics and did so in 1998, when she won a by-election for the conservative Grand National Party in her home town of Taegu.
Just three years later she is a potential candidate for the next presidential election in December 2002--she would be the first South Korean woman to run for the top post. Helping her is a wave of nostalgia for her father"s iron-fisted rule, as President Kim Dae Jung"s popularity dissolves. "There"s an economic crisis, and Park"s popularity is a reaction to that," explains a GNP official.Park is cleverly exploiting public disillusionment with politics-as-usual. She symbolizes a return to old certainties for those old enough to remember her father. But her gender, relative youth and newness to politics suggest to disenchanted younger voters that she is the fresh face they crave. "Many people feel we"ve gone backwards," she says. "More money is put into elections than before and you still see mud-slinging."Though coy about her political ambitions, Park is under no illusion about her growing popularity. "People like me because of my parents," she says, with a polite insistence honed over five years as acting first lady after her mother was killed by a bullet meant for her father. His policy of state-guided capitalism brought prosperity to a war-ravaged country. But it also carries a darker legacy of human-rights violations, including the 1973 kidnapping of his arch-enemy, Kim Dae Jung, from a Tokyo hotel.South Koreans are consequently split in their regard for Park Chung Hee. But there"s no doubting his daughter"s loyalty.
Her parliamentary office is adorned with memorabilia relating to her father"s rule.Park knows her pedigree could help make her South Korea"s first powerful female politician in a strongly patriarchal society. To that end she is wooing powerful politicians who made their names during her father"s time. Kim Jong Pil, a relative who helped launch the 1961 coup that allowed her father to become president in 1963, was visited in early April.She also met former President Kim Young Sam, who opposed her father"s regime. In South Korea"s intensely regional politics, Kim Jong Pil can deliver votes in South Chungchong province. And despite his failure to sidestep the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Kim Young Sam can get out the vote in South Kyongsang province. Park has a lock on votes in her home province of North Kyongsang.If she decides to run for president next year it could mean trouble for GNP leader Lee Hoi Chang, who was born in North Korea and therefore has no support-base to speak of. "The most likely scenario is that she decides to run for the GNP nomination," predicts Robert Fouser, a commentator on Korean politics at Kagoshima University in Japan. "If Lee loses the nomination, she wins the election in a landslide."But toppling Lee won"t be easy. It"s no surprise, then, that the latest rumour Park has had to deny is that she plans to create a new party with independent lawmaker Chung Mong Joon, son of recently deceased Hyundai founder Chung Ju Yung. Park"s hold over her diehard supporters would make her a handy addition to a new movement. Indeed, even if she doesn"t run, Park may well get to appoint the next president."She"ll be pivotal.
Whoever gets her support will carry one of the country"s most populous areas," explains Hahm Chai Bong, a political science professor at Yonsei University. Park believes her gender won"t be an issue: "My father had a firm sense of duty and I"ve inherited that quality." If she"s to survive the rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign, she"ll have to demonstrate some of his famous toughness as well.
John LarkinFar East Economic ReviewIssue cover-dated May 24, 2001
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