"I know how fleeting and, at times, harrowing political power can be," says Park Geun-hye
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Individually, many South Koreans are badly stressed from too much work. An intensely materialistic lifestyle — mocked by "Gangnam Style" — has contributed to household debt climbing to 154% of disposable income, and though the income gap is widening, among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development members, South Korea spends the least on welfare. The education system is among the world's most brutally competitive, and within the OECD, South Korea's suicide rate is the highest. Calls are growing for a more equitable society. "A country that has reached Korea's level of growth has to raise the quality of life of its citizens," says Seoul's mayor, Park Won-soon (no relation to Park Geun-hye). "We are in a situation that requires us to come up with creative, new ideas and to experiment."
Then there's Park's background. While her father, a general who seized power in a 1961 military coup, is revered by many South Koreans, particularly older folk, as a hero, he is also despised for flagrant abuses during his authoritarian rule. So outsize was his power and influence that his legacy remains the prism through which contemporary politics is viewed. Park Geun-hye's political pedigree, thus, is as much curse as blessing — it benefits yet also tarnishes her. To be a figure of unity she will have to overcome her history. "I know that the moniker of a 'President's daughter' will always be with me," she tells TIME. "[But] I know more than anyone the divergent views about my father. I want to be judged on my own merits."
Shadows of the Past
Seoul's Park Chung Hee presidential Library & Museum is ground zero for Park family lore. The sprawling complex is a tribute in glass and stone to a man and the transformation he wrought. In the lobby hangs a story-high portrait of the former dictator. Exhibits extol his rural-development schemes and water-management techniques. One case displays simply the scissors he used to cut ribbons at the openings of factories, dams and roads.
On a recent afternoon, the halls were nearly empty, save for a few elderly men shuffling about. Over soy milk at the gift shop, 80-year-old Woo Jae-young declares that Park Chung-hee is his hero. Born when the Korean Peninsula was a colony of Japan, Woo survived both the Korean War and the hungry years before Park's assumption of power. Such is his enthusiasm for Park that he buys TIME a small, framed portrait of the dictator to keep as a memento, and says he will vote for Park Geun-hye: "She was educated by a good father, so she will be a good President."
There's no guarantee of that, of course. But what's clear is that Park was forced to grow up fast. She was studying in Paris when her mother Yuk Young-soo was killed in a failed assassination attempt on her father. On the morning of Aug. 15, 1974, on South Korea's independence day, Park Chung-hee was speaking before a packed house at Seoul's National Theater when Mun Se-gwang, a sympathizer of North Korea, opened fire. The first shot missed its mark; the second hit the First Lady, who died later that day.
The story of Park Chung-hee's reaction to the fatal shooting of his wife has become the stuff of legend. As she was carried off the stage, he returned to the microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "I will continue my speech." These days, the tale is invariably told as a preface to an anecdote about his daughter, who, when told of her father's 1979 assassination, thought of her country first. "Is the border secure?" she reportedly asked, referring to possible North Korean incursions. Says Cho Gab-je, a conservative pundit and writer: "We have an expression, 'to have a big liver' — it's having guts. This is a quality both have." Her mother's death made Park Geun-hye, just 22 then, the de facto First Lady, hosting foreign dignitaries, including U.S. President Gerald Ford, and representing the First Family at events — a role that earned her much goodwill at home.