New South Korean president Park vows to make people happy
Seoul's first female leader is already battling an opposition trying to veto her ministerial choices
Following a jaunty ceremony featuring a 21-gun salute, folk dancers and star Psy, Park Geun-hye, who was sworn in yesterday as president of South Korea, made a revolutionary promise - to make her workaholic, ultra-competitive, ultra-stressed people happy.
Unfortunately – and uniquely for an incoming South Korean president – she has no administration in place to deliver that promise.
Park is not only the first female leader to win South Korea's presidency, but she is also the first to follow a family member to the office – her late father, Park Chung-hee, took power in a coup in 1961 and held on to it until his 1979 assassination.
Park is reviled by today's left-wing opposition party, and they have taken what might be considered a belated revenge; by vetoing his daughter's plans for government reorganisation, they have prevented any of her ministerial nominees from assuming office.
South Korea divides power between its executive and legislative branches. While the National Assembly makes laws, the president exercises power via the ministries, whose heads the president appoints.
It is the first time in South Korean political history that the assembly has stalled an incoming administration.
