Park Geun-hye of South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party waves to supporters in Seoul. Park Geun-hye won the tightly-contested presidential election, becoming the first woman to lead the country and extending the conservative rule for another five years.

Seoul: Park Geun-hye of South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party won the tightly contested presidential election held Wednesday, becoming the first woman to lead the country and extending the conservative rule for another five years.
With 94.5 per cent of the votes counted, Park, the 60-year-old daughter of South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee, won 51.7 percent of the vote, becoming the first one to garner more than half of all votes since democratic elections began in 1987.
Her archrival, Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party, was a close second with 47.9 per cent. Voter turnout was estimated at 75.8 per cent, the highest in 15 years, according to the National Election Commission. “I will become a president who puts people’s livelihoods before anything else,” Park told cheering crowds in central Seoul as she accepted her victory. “I will keep my promises.”
Park, who ran on job creation, welfare expansion and engagement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), had maintained a slight lead in almost all pre-election opinion surveys, though many were within the margin of error.
As a political veteran with the moniker “queen of elections,” Park acted as the de facto first lady to her father after her mother was assassinated and is credited with reviving the Saenuri Party when it was mired in a series of devastating corruption scandals. – Xinhua