» 04/12/2012 14:04 SOUTH KOREA Conservatives win elections and launch Park Geun-hye for presidency by Joseph Yun Li-sun Surprise as government formation, Saenuri, gets a majority of seats in the National Assembly and paves the way for their candidate, a Catholic, for president in December. A source tells AsiaNews: "Daughter of the Korean dictator, she experienced a long inner struggle, and a conversion."
Seoul (AsiaNews)
- South Korea's general elections have confirmed the surprise lead of the Saenuri
Party (currently in government) and have launched the nomination of Catholic
Park Geun-hye for president next December. After
two days of counting - in many districts the gap between majority and
opposition did not exceed 2% - the Saenuri has emerged with 152 seats out of a total
300 in
the National Assembly. The
Democratic Party got 127 seats, while the Progressive Party obtained 13.
The election results
are a good test for the presidential vote and always represented a sort of
verdict on the workings of government. Lee
Myung-bak, the current Conservative leader, has not intervened directly and
left the road open to Park, who set 120 seats as the "minimum target to be
reached." Although
close, the outcome has exceeded expectations and has reopened the race for the
presidency, which many analysts had already given to the Democrats.
An
AsiaNews source confirms Park's intention
to run: "She is Catholic, knows the country very well and was 'first lady'
for a long time, although in the role of daughter and wife of a president. She
has a solid relationship with
the faithful, but talks to everyone : she left the race in 2008 for personal
reasons, not political. "
Daughter of Park
Chung-hee, Korean dictator from 1963 to 1979, Geun-hye has a popularity rating
of 34.9%. An
electrical engineer, she has been at the "Blue House" since birth,
when her mother was assassinated on the orders of North Korea, in 1974, instead she
returned as first lady for her father until his assassination, which in 1979. Her
father's assassin, a member of his staff, was recognized as a national hero.
Park
has experienced a long internal drama. According
to AsiaNews sources "she knows
the reality of crimes committed by her father only in his later years, but has not
hesitated to condemn them. Buddhist by birth, she encountered the Church and to
found refuge there: but she has not become a bigot or put
her head in the sand. She knows she has a heavy name, but sincerely wants the
good of her country. "
