The ruling Saenuri Party has elected Rep. Park Geun-hye, 60, ex-Saenuri Party Emergency Committee chairperson, as its nominee to run for the Dec. 19 presidential election.

The five-term lawmaker won a landslide victory in the party primary at KINTEX in Ilsan, north of Seoul, by garnering a tremendous 86,589 votes, or a record 83.9 percent of all votes cast by party delegates and citizens. Gyeonggi Gov. Kim Moon-soo was the runner-up with 8,955 votes or 16.2 percent, trailed by Kim Tae-ho; Lim Tae-hee, former Cheong Wa Dae chief of staff and President Lee Myung-bak confidant; and Ahn Sang-soo. 

Park’ s win marks the first time a major party has nominated a woman as its presidential candidate. If she wins the upcoming presidential election, Park will be the first daughter of a former president to become the Chief Executive. She is the eldest daughter of the late President Park Chung Hee. 

In her acceptance speech shortly after winning the nomination on Aug. 20, Park called for what she called the “Third Wave of Change °™  an Era of People’ s Happiness,” surpassing the growth paradigm of industrialization and distribution paradigm of economic democratization. Mindful of the swirling debate over welfare and the distribution of wealth, Park came up with her campaign key words, which are a combination of economic democratization, welfare, and job creation in place of her previous campaign pledges °™  “julpulse” °™  a Korean acronym indicating lower taxes and smaller government, reduced restrictions, and the maintaining of law and order. An official of Park's campaign said she would also pursue julpulse.

She is making a pitch for the Third Wave of Change, stressing the need for a shift in the national paradigm from state-oriented policies to people-centered ones. She said, “In order to usher in a new era of people’ s happiness, a new system will be established to ensure the integration of economic democratization, welfare and job creation.” 

Declaring a balance between growth and welfare, Park noted she will take the first steps toward economic democratization and job creation. In this regard, Park also emphasized growth, saying that growth and welfare will go hand in hand, not separately. She touched on shared growth among large-sized companies and SMEs and the abolition of discrimination against temporary and irregular workers. 

Political parties °™  ruling and opposition alike °™  have added topics such as welfare and economic democratization on their campaign pledges to win voters’ hearts in the upcoming presidential election. On of the major opposition Democratic United Party’ s campaign pledges is halving university students’ tuition fees, becoming one of the controversies over so-called political welfare populism, but the ruling party is willing to follow suit.  

In her speech, Park proposed that a new era of grandiose reconciliation will be ushered in, saying, “I will spearhead a grandiose reconciliation so that all the people can be willing to join forces on a path toward the creation of a new Republic of Korea.” She continued, “I will take the path toward the people’ s grandiose reconciliation that goes beyond [the division over] ideology, class, region, and generation, and beyond [the eras of] industrialization and democratization.” 

Park’ s proposal is apparently related to intraparty demands over the accommodation of anti-Park faction members of the ruling party and the grand integration of all the conservatives, political analysts say. She suggested a grandiose integration of people in the big-picture perspective without resorting to the conventional paradigm of ideological division, commenting, “100-percent integration into the Republic of Korea, not dividing conservatives, moderates, and liberals.” 

In a separate question-and-answer session, Park repeatedly called for not being “stuck in the past.” Regarding the controversies over the May 16, 1961 military coup in which her father rose to power, Park said, “It is not desirable for political circles to be engaged in political rows after they put their responsibilities on the back burner.”

Park pledged to uproot corruption and influence-peddling practices surrounding her family members and confidants, saying there would be a special surveillance system against wrongdoings by the relatives of a president and confidants’ influence-peddling and there would be additional punishment against such violators. “I will be stricter on myself and people closed to me,” she said. Park made it clear that she will establish an institutional system to deal with opposition parties’ raising of unjustified allegations. 

As to the cash-for-nomination scandal involving an elected representative who is a member of the ruling party, Park also vowed to set up an in-house politics reform body, which will comprise of experts from inside and outside of the party and will present reform measures including the nominating of parliamentary candidates.  

The presidential contender stressed, “The external and internal situations we are now faced with are the starkest °™  North Korea threatening with provocative moves, territorial conflicts, and the restructuring of the order in Northeast Asia °™  and none of these are easy.” She continued, “In these times of crisis, a well-prepared leader will be necessary, and there should be a leader who will ensure stability in an era of uncertainties.” She was apparently referring to Seoul National University Professor Ahn Chul-soo. Even though the businessman-turned professor has yet to throw his hat into the presidential race, Ahn, who is now not associated with any political party, has emerged as a dark horse in the race, particularly gaining popularity among those in the younger generations. Park vs. Ahn are running neck-and-neck, according to the outcomes of several opinion polls. 

Park’ s campaign team strives to have a strategy of imbuing with the general public her image as a “well-prepared” or “stably experienced” leader.

Park has nicknames such as “Korea’ s Thatcher” and “Election Queen,” touting her as an experienced, principle-oriented political leader, but her critics claim she is “stubborn” and not in touch with the younger generation.”

The opposition DUP claims Park has inherited her father’ s legacies and should take responsibility for the chaos created by the Lee administration. 

She is sure to face challenges to become the first woman president of the nation. Analysts agree that Park, who now enjoys a wide support from the conservatives and those in older generations, will have to come up with more political reform measures to win the hearts of the younger generations.