Former GNP leader Park’s bikini photo rediscovered

By Kim Ji-soo

If it were few decades ago, a photo of Park Geun-hye, former chairwoman of the ruling Grand National Party and the daughter of former President Park Chung-hee in a bikini, would have been scandalous and heavily classified.

But now, as the 58-year-old Park steps up more into the limelight in what is largely being perceived as her bid for the presidential election in 2012, the picture is another way to let the public get to know her.

The photo was taken in 1967 when she was an eighth grader. It first appeared in a book published by the Government Information Agency. It has resurfaced as she has reemerged as one of the strongest contenders for the 2012 presidential election.

Park reportedly just smiled when fellow lawmakers commented on the photo at the parliamentary audit currently under way. But her associates are taking in the photo as a positive spin on the former chairwoman whose image is one of cool composure.

She was defeated by President Lee Myung-bak in the GNP primary in 2007.

After that their relationship further soured as lawmakers loyal to Park failed to win the party’s ticket to run in the 2008 parliamentary elections and the four-term lawmaker flexed her political muscle to block the government’s drive to scrap a plan to build an administrative town in Chungcheong Province in June.

But they have recently met more often and about a third of the GNP’s legislators remains strongly loyal to her. She has also been active in her duties as a member of the Strategy and Finance subcommittee at the National Assembly, in what is seen as an effort to brush up on her perceived weak spot, economics.

박근혜 1967년 비키니 사진 네티즌 관심

수십년 전이었으면 한나라당 박근혜 전 대표가 비키니 수영복을 입고 있는 사진은 철저히 비밀 자료가 되었을 것이다.

최근 정가에서 대권 `광폭 행보'를 보여온 박 전대표의 비키니 사진은 1967년 박 전 대표가 중학교 2학년 당시 바닷가에서 비키니 수영복을 입고 찍은 흑백사진.

이 사진은 국정홍보처가 발간한 `대한민국정부 기록사진집'에 처음 소개됐던 것.

박 전 대표는 국감장에서도 동료 의원들이 이 사진을 화제에 올리자 별말 없이 웃어 보인 것으로 전해졌다.