79 Facts About Park Geunhye

Park Geunhye was the first South Korean president to be born after the founding of South Korea.

Park Geunhye was a member of the National Assembly, serving four consecutive parliamentary terms between 1998 and 2012.

Park Geunhye started her fifth term as a representative elected via national list in June 2012.

In 2013 and 2014, Park Geunhye ranked 11th on the Forbes list of the world's 100 most powerful women and the most powerful woman in East Asia.

On 9 December 2016, Park Geunhye was impeached by the National Assembly on charges related to influence peddling by her top aide, Choi Soon-sil.

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Park Geunhye was found guilty of illegally taking off-the-book funds from the National Intelligence Service and given a five-year prison sentence, and found guilty of illegally interfering in the Saenuri Party primaries in the 2016 South Korean legislative election, for which she was sentenced to two more years in prison.

Park Geunhye was released from prison on 31 December and returned home three months later on 24 March 2022.

Park Geunhye Geun-hye was born on 2 February 1952, in Samdeok-dong of Jung District, Daegu, as the first child of Park Geunhye Chung-hee, the third president of South Korea, who having come to power with the May 16 military coup d'etat of 1961, served from 1963 to 1979; and his wife, First Lady Yuk Young-soo.

Park Geunhye has a younger brother, Park Ji-man, and a younger sister, Park Geun-ryeong.

In 1953, Park Geunhye's family moved to Seoul, where she graduated from Jangchung Elementary School and Sungshim Girls' Middle and High School in 1970, going on to receive a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from Sogang University in 1974.

Park Geunhye briefly studied at Joseph Fourier University in France, but left following the murder of her mother.

Park Geunhye's mother was killed on 15 August 1974 in the National Theater of Korea; Mun Se-gwang, a Japanese-born ethnic Korean sympathizer of North Korea and member of the Chongryon, was attempting to assassinate her husband, President Park Geunhye Chung-hee.

Park Geunhye Geun-hye was regarded as First Lady until the assassination of her father by his intelligence chief, Kim Jae-gyu, on 26 October 1979.

In 2007, Park Geunhye expressed regret at the treatment of activists during this period.

Park Geunhye received honorary doctoral degrees from the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan in 1987, Pukyong National University and KAIST in 2008, Sogang University in 2010, and TU Dresden in 2014.

Park Geunhye was elected a Grand National Party assemblywoman for Dalseong County in the 1998 by-election, and three more times in the same electoral district between 1998 and 2008, being the incumbent assemblywoman till April 2012.

In 2012, Park Geunhye announced that she would not run for a constituency representative seat for the 19th election in Dalseong or anywhere else, but for a proportional representative position for the Saenuri Party instead, in order to lead the party's election campaign.

Park Geunhye was elected as a proportional representative in the April 2012 election.

Park Geunhye was appointed as the chairwoman of the party and led the election efforts.

On 12 February 2007, Park Geunhye made a much-publicized visit to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

Park Geunhye's visit culminated in an address to a packed audience at the John F Kennedy School of Government, where she said she wanted to save Korea and advocated a stronger relationship between South Korea and the United States.

Park Geunhye hoped to emulate her father's success by becoming the presidential nominee of the GNP.

Park Geunhye eventually lost to Lee Myung-bak by a narrow margin.

Lee had a commanding lead at the beginning of the primary season, but Park Geunhye was able to narrow the gap through allegations of Lee's corruption.

Park Geunhye won the "party members' bid", but she lost the "national bid", which is a larger percentage of the total presidential bid.

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Park Geunhye's supporters argued that this was a kind of political reprisal and that they should secede from the GNP.

Park Geunhye continually insisted that the GNP should allow the return of her supporters.

Park Geunhye benefited from a public image of standing aloofly above the fray of politics.

In national presidential polls in September 2011, Ahn and Park Geunhye closely competed for the status of frontrunner, with Park Geunhye losing the top seat in some polls for the first time since 2008.

On 10 July 2012, Park Geunhye formally announced her presidential bid at the Time Square, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul.

Park Geunhye was elected as president of the Republic of Korea on 19 December 2012, with the approval of 51.

Since 2009 Park Geunhye started to focus more on welfare issues, advocating customized welfare services to the Korean people.

Park Geunhye was well known for her strict adherence to political promises.

In 2012, Park Geunhye vowed to construct a new airport in the southeastern region, a 2008 presidential campaign promise made by GNP but cancelled in 2011, despite claims of economic infeasibility of the plan.

Administrative vision of Park Geunhye's new government was "a new era of hope and happiness".

Park Geunhye chose not to vote in the 2017 South Korean presidential election.

Park Geunhye became the 11th president of South Korea on 25 February 2013.

Park Geunhye particularly expressed her hope that North Korea would give up its nuclear arms and walk on the path of peace and mutual development, and declared that the foundation for a happy era of unification in which all Korean people will be able to enjoy prosperity and freedom and realize their dreams would be built through the Korean Peninsula Trust-building Process.

Right after taking office, Park Geunhye restructured the Blue House and government organization to carry out her administrative vision.

Park Geunhye called for a strong global relationship between South Korea and the United States.

Park Geunhye assessed the security situation on the Korean Peninsula and emphasized that deterrence capabilities were the most important factor for security.

Park Geunhye hoped the American–South Korean relationship can be upgraded from a comprehensive strategic alliance to a global partnership.

Park Geunhye visited the United States on her first overseas trip as president.

Park Geunhye maintained her stance that South Korea will not succumb to the North's provocations and threats, and will endeavor to elicit policy coordination towards North Korea with major powers such as the United States, China and the UN.

Park Geunhye said that peace and unification on the Korean peninsula is the wish of all 70 million Koreans and that as president she will do her utmost to meet such a goal.

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On 13 November 2013, Park Geunhye held an extended meeting with President Vladimir Putin, whose visit to South Korea was the first among leaders of four major powers including the United States, China, and Japan.

Park Geunhye, especially, emphasized on making preparations to produce an outcome that corresponds to common interests by combining Korea's Eurasian Initiative and Russia's Asia-Pacific Policy.

When Park Geunhye met with Russian Minister for the Development of Russian Far East Viktor Ishaev, who headed the Russian delegation to Park Geunhye's inaugural ceremony, she stated that Russia is one of Korea's key strategic partners, and the successful launch of the Naro rocket is the outcome of mutually beneficial relations and demonstrates that relations will grow stronger in the future.

Park Geunhye noted that Russia's active participation in the six-party talks will contribute to alleviating tension on the Korean Peninsula.

Park Geunhye announced her plan to build a "Creative Economy" on 5 June 2013, representing her vision for economic revival and job creation.

On 8 April 2014, Park Geunhye signed the Australia–Korea Free Trade Agreement with Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

On 18 May 2013, Park Geunhye attended the 33rd anniversary of the Gwangju massacre, and expressed sorrow for the victims' family members.

On 18 May 2014, Park Geunhye announced South Korea's "plans to break up its coastguard" after failing to respond well during the MV Sewol ferry disaster.

On 26 May 2015, Park Geunhye urged the head of the Asian Development Bank to cooperate with South Korea and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank after South Korea had officially applied to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in late March 2015.

On 1 May 2016, Park Geunhye became the first South Korean president to visit Iran.

Park Geunhye was at the head of a 236-member delegation of businessmen and entrepreneurs during a three-day visit to Tehran to discuss bilateral trade and other matters of mutual interest.

Park Geunhye met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and held talks with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Park Geunhye suffered a serious setback in the 2016 general elections on 13 April 2016, as the Saenuri Party lost both its majority and its status as first party in the National Assembly.

Park Geunhye had been criticized for her involvement in the elections and the party's nomination process, and other Saenuri members blamed the pro-Park Geunhye faction in the party for the defeat.

The result was seen to hinder the chances of Park Geunhye's passing her proposed economic reforms, and in the aftermath of the results the conservative The Chosun Ilbo stated that Park Geunhye's "lame duck period has started earlier than any other administration in the past".

Park Geunhye was arrested on 31 March 2017, and held in pre-trial detention at the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province.

On 17 April 2017, Park Geunhye was formally charged with abuse of power, bribery, coercion and leaking government secrets.

Park Geunhye denied the charges during five rounds of interrogation while in prison.

In June 2018, three former NIS directors who served in the Park Geunhye administration were found guilty of bribing, related to the 2016 Park Geunhye Geun-hye scandals.

On 24 December 2021, it was announced that Park Geunhye would receive a pardon from South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

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Park Geunhye had been often criticized for being the "daughter of a dictator" and by supporters of Lee Myung-bak for not actively supporting the Lee administration.

Park Geunhye inherited strong regional and generational support from her father, as well as the legacy of his economic success, Park Geunhye's opponents used her father as criticism against her.

Park Geunhye has faced much scrutiny over an educational foundation, Jeongsoo Scholarship Foundation, formerly known as Buil, which her father, and later she, headed.

Furthermore, some have said Park Geunhye's behavior in the lead-up to 2012 presidential election was a mixture of trend-following and corner-cutting—a stark contrast with the vehement insistence on the principle that she showed when she opposed a revision of the plan for a multifunctional administrative city in Sejong City.

Park Geunhye has been criticized for picking the wrong people for senior government posts.

Park Geunhye even said the standoff of the self-lock-in was a violation of a female right in the presidential candidate debate that took place three days before the election.

Park Geunhye has been criticized for holding press conferences with questions and answers submitted in advance.

The rally was triggered by Park Geunhye's adopting business-friendly labour policies and a decision to require middle and high schools to use only state-issued history textbooks in classes starting in 2017, combined with plans to make labour markets more flexible by giving employers more leeway in dismissing workers.

On 25 June 2015, Park Geunhye said that "Betrayal which breaks the trust shouldn't be accepted in politics and this should be punished by election with people's own hands".

Park Geunhye's statement was criticized by professor Jo Guk and politician Moon Jae-in because it was intended to affect Yu's election, which is forbidden by the Public Official Election Act.

In 2015, Park Geunhye reached an agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe regarding the comfort women issue.

Park Geunhye then fired a number of her cabinet members and the prime minister.

On 29 November 2016, Park Geunhye offered to resign as president, and invited the National Assembly to arrange a transfer of power.

Park Geunhye was finally ousted from office by the Constitutional Court on 10 March 2017.