Jung Min-ho has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2012, mostly covering social and political issues. He currently belongs to the Politics & City Desk where he covers topics such as health, labor and human rights. Prior to joining the team, he was responsible for covering North Korea and sports. His article about a biosecurity breach of Middle East respiratory syndrome won him an award from the Korea Science Journalists Association in 2016. He is also the co-author of the book, "Medical Pioneers of Korea" (2019). He served as the head of the international relations committee at the Journalists Association of Korea from 2021 to 2023.
Park joins female leaders in world politics
President-elect Park Geun-hye shakes hands with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin in this September 2006 file photo. / Yonhap
By Jung Min-ho
Cristina Fernandez Argentinian President
Dilma Rousseff Brazilian President
By Jung Min-ho
After being elected as the next president of Asia’s fourth largest economy, Park Geun-hye will carry the weight as one of the most powerful women in the world.
Korea, perhaps, was an unlikely source for a female head of state when it has the highest level of gender inequality in the developed world. Upon her arrival in Cheong Wa Dae, Park will be joining a growing number of women leaders on the international scene, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Thailand Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Merkel was named as the world’s most powerful woman by Forbes magazine in 2011 and 2012. Under her leadership, Germany has ridden out the region’s economic gloom on the back of the country’s strong exports.
Both standing as conservative politicians, Park and the German leader studied science in college, electronic engineering at Sogang University and physics at the University of Leipzig respectively.
They have maintained a good relationship since they met for the first time in 2000, when Park as the leader of the then-Grand National Party and Merkel the head of the Christian Democrats. Merkel sent Park a letter of congratulations for being nominated as the candidate on Aug. 20, and is expected to send a congratulatory message on her presidential triumph as well. Park also said she shares similar views with Merkel on North Korea.
Rousseff is the first female president of Brazil. Born into an upper middle class family, she walked quite a different path from Park as she had became an active socialist to fight against military forces that overthrew the then-President Joao Goulart.
After dark years in jail from 1970 to 1972, she entered into politics by contributing to the founding of the Democratic Labor Party in 1979.
Despite differences in their political viewpoints, Rousseff and Park share common ground by opening a new era of female power in becoming the first in their socially conservative nations to empower women.
After winning the presidential election in 2010, Rousseff said in a confident tone that “I would like parents who have daughters to look them straight in the eye and tell them, ‘Yes women can.’”
Fernandez, leader of Argentina since 2007, also has unique personal history.
She is the wife of former President Nestor Kirchner who served his term from 2003 to 2007. So, her victory in 2007 election made the couple a “royal family,” naming Kirchner the nation’s first gentleman, but he died of a heart attack on Oct. 21 in 2010.
Park and Fernandez’s experiences of first lady roles before taking their respective administrations gave them ample opportunities to get a glimpse of the leaders’ role, helping them to take the post later. Also, the tragic deaths in the lives of the two, Kirchner and Park’s father and late strongman Park Chung-hee, appeared to provoke strong surges of sympathy from voters.
Faced with the daunting task of bring their respective countries’ economies out of the gutter, the two’s leaderships will likely be evaluated by their performance on this issue. Argentina has recently been warned by the International Monetary Fund for failing to providing accurate inflation and growth statistics, which may lead the country to face various economic penalties.
To keep her word of improving the social welfare system and unifying the ideologically divided country, Park might be able to learn much from Thorning-Schmidt, a leader of the role model country when it comes to those matters.
She is known as a well-balanced leader that has pursued a centrist position. Also regarding policies about taxes and social welfare, she tries to strike balance between the two. Since her administration took off last year, she has lowered taxes on wages in a bid to increase work productivity.
Though it remains to be seen whether her policies will boost the nation’s economy, Denmark is considered one of the well-off members of the European Union.
At the age of 45, Shinawatra carved out her name in Thailand’s history book as the first female and the youngest prime minister in over 60 years in 2011.
On the heels of the honorable election victory in August, however, the young prime minister-elect faced a stiff challenge only two months later as the country was hit by one of the worst floods in history. But her calm but tenacious leadership in dealing with the emergency made her a popular figure in the military-dominated Thai politics.
Just like Park, however, her leadership is only expected to be tested further as the country is at a crossroads with more challenges such as the global economic recession and the increasingly convoluted geopolitics of the region.