South Korea elects first Female President ... a welcomed development

There, in Wednesday's presidential election, the New Frontier Party of incumbent President Lee Myung-bak clung to power by a slim margin. Park Geun-hye, the daughter of a controversial former president, barely prevailed over Moon Jae-in, the candidate of the main opposition party and the son of North Korean refugees.

With 96 percent of the votes tallied, Park had received 51.6 percent of the vote to Moon's 47.9 percent, according to National Election Commission figures cited in the New York Times.

Park, who will be South Korea's first female president, was aided by a national economy that grew faster than those of most other industrialized nations. But a significant part of the electorate also had become wary of economic inequality within the country.

"The economic situation in Korea is not that grave," said Sung-Yoon Lee, an assistant professor of Korean studies at Tufts University. "Yet there is the perception that income inequality, in terms of distribution, the gap between the rich and poor, has increased dramatically. That people are out of work, that young people out of college are unable to find work, employment and so forth."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/12/south-korea-1.html

Once she becomes president, Park also will face a number of foreign policy issues, foremost of which is the worry that North Korea is still developing its nuclear weapons program.

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