We present Mme President!

Rep. Park Geun-hye couldn’t sleep. When Park, who turned 61 this year, looked up at the clock on the wall, it was one minute past midnight. She smiled at herself, thinking that she had been the 18^thpresident of the Republic of Korea for an hour or so.

Two hours before, her top lieutenants had left her alone in her house. Her inauguration ceremony was 10 short hours away at 11 a.m. in front of the National Assembly.

She picked up a printed text of her inauguration speech but put it back on the desk. Instead, she went to the big panel window and looked outside. She had insisted that she spend her last night at home before moving into Cheong Wa Dae.

It was late in February and small, neat mounds of snow remained in corners of the courtyard.

She found herself looking at her reflection.

She said to herself, “I have made it, dad.” She smiled a half smile. It was one of those rare moments she let down her guard and defied her nickname, “Ice Princess.” She wondered if she would perhaps still be called “Ice Queen” now.

She remembered the day when she was told of her father’s death and that of her mother.

Park reassured herself that it was all worth it. Her father, Gen. Park Chung-hee, staged a coup to save the nation from the brink of collapse but tried to become president for life before he was assassinated by his closest lieutenant.

Her mother was killed by a North Korea-hired hitman during a televised Aug. 15 Liberation Day ceremony.

The tragic deaths of her parents sealed her destiny. She was not meant to live a life of an ordinary woman. She had her share of regrets but she concluded long ago that regrets were futile.

If it was her destiny and she wanted to live it to the fullest extent.

With her eyes still on her reflection, her thoughts moved to her victory in the three-way presidential race.

She thought that she owed victory as much to herself as to the two competitors. “It was so close,” she heaved a sigh of relief.

She remembered a nail-biting period, thinking what if they had combined their candidacy. Even now, just remembering that time made her knit her brow and shiver.

It was Nov. 5 when independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo proposed a private meeting with the Democratic United Party’s (DUP) Rep. Moon Jae-in the following day.

Obviously Ahn had been under pressure to respond to repeated suggestions by Moon for talks aimed at unifying their campaigns and launching a single opposition bid. The proposal came a week before he said that he would make a decision.

Moon was guardedly optimistic because he knew what happened in such a meeting previously.

In that meeting, Ahn decided not to run for Seoul mayor and rather throw his support behind Park Won-soon, who went on to win the election.

Moon was not naïve enough to expect the same from Ahn with a bigger prize at stake. But what’s to lose from wishful thinking, he smiled to himself.

During their 6 o’clock talk, the two met alone and agreed in principle on the need for a unified candidacy.

The two even talked about emulating the French model to share power.

They also exchanged ideas about a possible constitutional change for a two-term presidency. The obvious ramifications were that if either of the two won the election and revised the current five-year single-term system, he would seek a term change.

He as incumbent may not seek reelection but would guarantee his successor two terms for the first time since the 1987 constitutional revision.

The two parted ways with a firm handshake.  The media made a big deal out of their meeting and Park felt a sense of crisis.

Reports had it that Moon hinted at accepting Ahn’s proposal of using a simple opinion poll to determine the winner. Various polls showed Ahn was ahead. He was caught off guard when Moon didn’t insist on using mobile balloting, a system that helped him to win the DUP candidacy.

What was not printed or broadcast was that in their minds, each of the two thought that he should be the one to head the unified ticket in the December election.

A week later, Moon and Ahn appointed their teams to engage in the method of picking one of them.

It was two weeks before Nov. 25 when candidates register with the National Election Commission (NEC).

Those two weeks went well but it was the DUP patriarchs who rebelled, claiming that Moon had betrayed the party. They argued Ahn couldn’t represent the DUP as he was not a party member and Moon had no right to hand over the party to him.

Ahn and Moon had eleventh-hour talks but no decision came from them. Moon was torn between party loyalty and a sense of mission to thwart the conservatives’ bid to extend their power by five years. The following day, he held a press conference and declared, “No unified candidacy with Ahn.”

Voters’ disappointment was apparent. Even some of the two’s supporters shifted their loyalty.

Through a kaleidoscope of thoughts, a hint of smile appeared on Park’s face, subdued by her typical serious look, highlighted by her pursed lips.

“They were so close,” she said to herself.

Now in bed, she closed her eyes. She still couldn’t sleep, worrying that she could look puffy during the swearing-in ceremony. She contemplated that she might have to wear a skirt for the ceremony. <The Korea Times/Oh Young-jin>