This combination of two photos shows (left) South Korea’s presidential candidate Park Geun-Hye of the ruling New Frontier Party speaking during her election campaign in Suwon, south of Seoul, and Moon Jae-In of the opposition Democratic United Party speaking during his election campaign in Incheon.
SEOUL: The two rivals for South Korea’s presidency made a final pitch to voters yesterday — the eve of an election that looks set to go down to the wire and could produce the country’s first female leader.
The winner of today’s ballot will face numerous foreign and domestic challenges, including a pugnacious North Korea, a slowing economy and soaring welfare costs in one of the world’s most rapidly ageing societies.
Ruling conservative party candidate Park Geun-Hye is looking to make history as the first female president of a still male-dominated nation, and the first to be related to a former leader.
Park, 60, is the daughter of one of modern Korea’s most polarising figures, the late dictator Park Chung-Hee, who is both admired for dragging the country out of poverty and reviled for his ruthless suppression of dissent during 18 years of autocratic rule.
He was shot dead by his spy chief in 1979. Park’s mother had been killed five years earlier by a pro-North Korea gunman aiming for her father.
Standing between Park and the presidential Blue House is the liberal Moon Jae-In from the main opposition party, a former human rights lawyer who was once jailed for protesting against the regime of Park’s father.
The last permitted opinion polls showed that Moon had eroded the small but clear lead Park enjoyed for much of the campaign, leaving the result too close to call.
After locking in the support of their respective conservative and liberal bases, the two candidates have actively wooed crucial centrist voters, resulting in significant policy overlap. AFP
