At 10AM, Park Geun Hye, former chair of the ruling Saenuri Party’s emergency policy committee and daughter of South Korea’s 1960s-70s military dictator Park Chung Hee, finally declared that she will run for president in the upcoming December 19th election.

Making her official announcement outside Times Square shopping mall in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, Park stated, “Capitalism, which has lost sight of its principles, is at a critical crossraods. I will take as my three main tasks for the bringing of happiness to our people; ‘to realize economic democracy,’ ‘to stimulate job creation’ and ‘to establish Korean-style welfare.’”

“I will create a country where peoples’ dreams can be fulfilled,” she went on to declare.

Park also had much to say about inter-Korean relations, notably asserting that “We must take the first step toward a new Korean Peninsula of peace and trust, breaking the cycle of distrust, confrontation and uncertainty between North and South.”

Her words appear to be an extension of the vision for inter-Korean relations she published in Foreign Affairs last August, where she put forward the idea of ‘Trustpolitik’, attempting to mirror notions of ‘Ostpolitik’ from the German reunification case.

She went on, “We should strive to prepare for our people’s dream, that of a unified nation. The Cold War ended over two decades ago; however, still North and South are unable to establish even the foundations of trust.”

“Under a national consensus and against a backdrop of inter- Korean trust and international cooperation, we must set the conditions for a secure inter-Korean relationship and for North Korea to become a responsible member of the international community,” she concluded.

She also noted, “I will strengthen efforts to make progress on the North Korean nuclear problem and enhance our national security, and establish a unified diplomatic ‘control tower’ that can effectively respond to the new national security surroundings.”