Park Geun-hye, the daughter of an assassinated dictator, officially launched her bid yesterday to become South Korea’s first female president, with polls placing her as frontrunner in December’s election.
The veteran politician, who is expected to secure the ruling conservative New Frontier Party’s nomination at its primary next month, softened her message in a speech apparently intended to broaden her appeal beyond conservatives.
Pledging to work for a fair and transparent market economy, Park, 60, vowed to expand welfare and push for “economic democratization” amid a widening wealth gap and high youth unemployment in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Photo: EPA
“Our economy has excessively emphasized efficiency and disregarded the importance of fairness, resulting in an increased income gap and imbalances,” she told cheering supporters at a shopping plaza in western Seoul.
“I will ... create a government that boldly and resolutely enforces laws to make influential companies fulfill their social responsibilities,” she said.
Huge conglomerates fostered by her father, Park Chung-hee, in the 1960s and 1970s still dominate the economy, sparking resentment at their omnipresence.
About 1,000 supporters — mostly middle-aged or older and clad in the party’s trademark red — chanted her name and waved national flags, balloons and banners reading “The nation loves you”.
South Korea is at a “crucial juncture” faced with an ageing society, a low birthrate and jobless woes for youth, she said, promising to increase investment in the service sectors and in science and technology to help create jobs.
“I will devote my everything to make the Republic of Korea a country in which everybody can achieve their dreams,” she said.
Park Geun-hye’s father seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled until his assassination in 1979 by his spy chief. Her mother was shot dead by a pro-North Korean assassin in 1974.
Yesterday she said the death of her parents caused her “unbearable pain” at an young age and called the nation “my mother, my family.”
She narrowly lost the conservative party’s nomination to Lee Myung-bak in 2007. He went on to become president, but is constitutionally barred from standing again.
Recent opinion polls show Park beating potential presidential rivals by a wide margin.
A Realmeter survey published last week gave her 42.4 percent, followed by 19.6 percent for left-leaning software mogul Ahn Cheol-soo, who has not officially declared his candidacy.
Moon Jae-in, the likely candidate of the main left-leaning opposition Democratic United Party, got 15 percent support.
Park Geun-hye also vowed to ease relations with North Korea that have been icy for years under Lee, and to work harder to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.
“It has been some 20 years since the Cold War was over, but the Koreas have still been unable to build a very basic level of trust,” she said, vowing to end “the vicious cycle of distrust, confrontation and uncertainty.”
She promised to create conditions “allowing the North to become a responsible member of the international community ... and will strengthen efforts to make progress in the North’s nuclear issue.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number