Park eyes youth in presidential bid
Source: Agencies |
July 11, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE frontrunner to win South Korea's presidential election, Park Geun-hye, yesterday launched her third bid to become the first woman to lead the country, abandoning earlier tough policies with an inclusive message aimed at winning over youngsters.
The slight and private 60-year old, who once dubbed her policies "Korean Thatcherism" after the free-market former British prime minister, pledged at a rally in central Seoul that she would "create a country where no one is left behind."
Her conservative New Frontier Party holds a primary in August to pick its nominee for the December contest. Park is the daughter of slain South Korean president Park Chung-hee, whose legacy still divides this nation of 50 million. He spearheaded the rapid economic growth that helped create an Asian economic powerhouse out of the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War, but had scant regard for democratic principles.
"People say this country and the economy grew, but their lives didn't get better and their happiness did not grow," Park, clad in a crisply ironed suit of her party's red color, told a rally at a glitzy mall in Seoul.
"The change you have been waiting for, Park Geun-hye will make it come true," she told an audience of largely older people, her support base.
Since losing her party's nomination in 2007 to incumbent Lee Myung-bak, whose mandatory single term ends next year, Park has tacked to the center and promised to implement more welfare policies as well as engage with North Korea if it abandons its nuclear weapons program.
The conservatives are in an unlikely race to claim "economic democracy" as the centerpiece of their campaign platform, trying to woo the less ideological and fiscally pragmatic urban voters who will be eyeing the candidates' visions for social equity.
Park pledged to bring greater fairness to the business environment and said that while she will continue to eliminate pointless regulations, big corporations will be called upon to do more for the greater social good. "I will create a government that decisively implements the law so that corporations that have big influence can do all they can to meet their social responsibility."
Park leads a varied and large field of declared and potential candidates with a more than 38 percent support rate, nearly 20 points ahead of second-placed, Ahn Cheol-soo, a software entrepreneur who has not officially announced he is a candidate.
His latest rating stands at 19 percent, about the same as last September when he seized public attention, indicating Park has failed to reach beyond her core conservative base.
The slight and private 60-year old, who once dubbed her policies "Korean Thatcherism" after the free-market former British prime minister, pledged at a rally in central Seoul that she would "create a country where no one is left behind."
Her conservative New Frontier Party holds a primary in August to pick its nominee for the December contest. Park is the daughter of slain South Korean president Park Chung-hee, whose legacy still divides this nation of 50 million. He spearheaded the rapid economic growth that helped create an Asian economic powerhouse out of the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War, but had scant regard for democratic principles.
"People say this country and the economy grew, but their lives didn't get better and their happiness did not grow," Park, clad in a crisply ironed suit of her party's red color, told a rally at a glitzy mall in Seoul.
"The change you have been waiting for, Park Geun-hye will make it come true," she told an audience of largely older people, her support base.
Since losing her party's nomination in 2007 to incumbent Lee Myung-bak, whose mandatory single term ends next year, Park has tacked to the center and promised to implement more welfare policies as well as engage with North Korea if it abandons its nuclear weapons program.
The conservatives are in an unlikely race to claim "economic democracy" as the centerpiece of their campaign platform, trying to woo the less ideological and fiscally pragmatic urban voters who will be eyeing the candidates' visions for social equity.
Park pledged to bring greater fairness to the business environment and said that while she will continue to eliminate pointless regulations, big corporations will be called upon to do more for the greater social good. "I will create a government that decisively implements the law so that corporations that have big influence can do all they can to meet their social responsibility."
Park leads a varied and large field of declared and potential candidates with a more than 38 percent support rate, nearly 20 points ahead of second-placed, Ahn Cheol-soo, a software entrepreneur who has not officially announced he is a candidate.
His latest rating stands at 19 percent, about the same as last September when he seized public attention, indicating Park has failed to reach beyond her core conservative base.
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