of the Democratic United Party, by more than 3 percentage points. She also became the first female politician, not only in Korea but also in Northeast Asia, to be elected to a nation’s top post.
Her rise to the presidency comes at a time when the political divide is deepening and Korea’s export-driven economy is slowing. Security tensions in North Asia are also alarmingly high, amid territorial disputes and North Korea’s recent launching of a long-range rocket, which many believe to be a precursor to a ballistic missile for a nuclear bomb. What does Park’s presidency mean in this context? And how can we understand her rise to the presidency in a country previously ruled by her authoritarian father, President Park Chung-hee, for nearly eighteen years (1961–79), until he was assassinated? Two major factors that led to Park’s victory help to answer these questions.
One is the massive turnout of older voters, in their fifties (89.9 per cent voter turnout) and sixties and over (78.8 per cent turnout), who predominantly gave their vote to Park. This phenomenon, according to the progressive Kyunghyang Daily’s random interview of voters aged in their fifties, was a spontaneous response by these voters to their preference for ‘stability’ expected from Ms Park, rather than taking a risk on ‘uncertain reform’ under Moon.
By choosing Park over Moon, the older voters blocked a possible return of a progressive government led by Moon who, in their eyes, was unprepared, too far to the left and too pro-North to bringing the change needed to recover Korean workers’ livelihoods, including youths and seniors.
Park’s rise to the presidency primarily means the Korean people’s reaffirmation of conservative change, especially in handling their growing economic inequality and social polarisation. Concerning North Korea, it means that Korea will pursue a cautious rapprochement by implementing a dual policy of ‘greater engagement’ on the one hand, and ‘robust deterrence’, especially in regard to North Korean nuclear missile threats, on the other. This dual policy is a long way from the isolationist approach of President Lee Myung-bak, who many Koreans believe has mismanaged the inter-Korean relationship. Most of all, Park believes that a strong security alliance with the United States is vital to Korea’s own national security, similar to the Australian government’s approach. This is a good sign for the Australia–Korea relationship.
Park’s groundbreaking victory is also largely credited to Park’s personal influence and efforts, especially in building her reputation as a principled politician who keeps her promises. Park, 60, an engineering graduate, initially built her political career on her family tragedy after losing both her parents. A Communist agent killed her mother in 1974 when she was 22, and then her father was assassinated five years later. Park, who never married, entered into politics in 1998 with a public vow to ‘save the country’ during the Asian financial crisis, and rode on the populist surge of national nostalgia toward her father at that time, for his achievement of Korea’s economic miracle.
Her biggest challenge in the lead up to the 2012 election, however, was to publicly apologise for her father’s authoritarian rule and the military coup of 1960 through which he seized power. To many supporters of liberal democracy, especially the younger generations in their twenties and thirties, she was seen largely as the daughter of a dictator and thus fundamentally an impediment to South Korea’s democratic future. On the other hand, Park receiving the majority vote in this election indicates that Park Chung-hee’s legacy is now well and truly in the past.
Another major factor has been Park’s newly articulated leadership approach, which she promotes as ‘Mother Leadership’. Mother Leadership, according to Park, is akin to a mother’s devotion and caring for her family. Throughout her campaign, she repeatedly claimed that the Korean people were her ‘only family’ as she had no family of her own, and thus she claimed to be in politics to make the Korean people ‘happy’. Park’s portrayal of her motherly leadership, with an emphasis on feminine attentiveness and preparedness, was very effective in encouraging women to vote for her.
By pledging to provide greater opportunities for women to return to work by establishing ‘career coaching’ centres, and to train 100,000 female workers by 2017, Park motivated many women to envision a more gender-balanced workplace in Korean society, where the gender pay gap is the biggest among OECD members. She also pledged to increase in stages the ratio of females in Cabinet ministries and governmental committees, by changing the male-oriented power structures. The resultant increase in her share of the female vote, obtaining 51.1 per cent, 3.2 percentage points more than Moon (47.9 per cent), clearly helped her to victory.
It is not yet clear to what extent Park’s emphasis on motherly leadership will be effective, especially in terms of achieving her promises of ‘economic democratisation’, as she is facing innumerable challenges. Yet Park’s rise to the presidency unambiguously signals a big step forward taken already by ordinary working people in today’s Korea.
Hyung-A Kim is Associate Professor of Korean Politics and History at the College of Asia and the Pacific, the Australian National University. An earlier version of this article originally appeared here, in the Canberra Times