Han Myung-sook

Han Myung-sook

Korean spelling
Hangeul	한명숙
Hanja	韓明淑
Revised Romanization	Han Myeong-suk
McCune- Reischauer	Han Myŏngsuk
See also : Korean name

Han Myung-sook (born March 24, 1944 in Heijō , Heian-nandō Sub - Province, Chōsen Province , former Japanese Empire , today's North Korea ) was the first female Prime Minister of South Korea in history. Her predecessor Lee Hae-chan resigned on March 15, 2006 because of the so-called golf game affair , he had played golf during a major strike. Until her inauguration, Han Duck-soo took over the duties of Prime Minister.

She graduated from Ewha Women's University in 1967 with a Bachelor of French Language and Literature . In 1986 she obtained a Masters in Women's Studies.

She came to politics through her husband, a professor and dissident, and was an activist at the Christian Academy . In 1979 she was sentenced to two years in prison under dictator Park Chung-hee , which she served under Chun Doo-hwan . She was later rehabilitated.

In 2000 she was elected to parliament. Like the then President Roh, she belonged to the liberal Yeollin-uri party ( 열린 우리당 , Yeollin-uri-dang, Our Open Party) and is considered a moderate politician. She was South Korea's first female minister for gender equality and family in 2001, and in 2003 she was minister for the environment. Kim Dae-jung had proposed a wife to Chang Sang in 2002; but it was rejected by parliament.

The Yeollin-uri party merged in 2008 with the Sae-cheonnyeon-minju party ( 새천년 민주당 , Sae-cheonnyeon-minju-dang, Millennium Democratic Party) to form the Minju party ( 민주당 , Democratic Party), which in turn joined in December 2011 the Citizen Integration Party to the Minju-tonghap Party ( 민주 통합 당 , Minju-tonghap-dang, United Democratic Party). Han Myung-sook was elected party leader at the party's first congress on January 15, 2012. After her party's defeat in the parliamentary elections in South Korea in 2012 , she announced that she was stepping down from her position as party leader.

Web links

• Official Website (Korean)
• Report by the NZZ on the nomination of Han Myung-sook ( memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Report of the Netzeitung for confirmation by the Parliament ( Memento of March 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DUP boss Han Myung-sook resigns due to electoral defeat. In: KBS World. April 13, 2012, Retrieved April 13, 2012 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Lee Hae-chan	Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea April 20, 2006 - March 7, 2007	Han Duck-soo

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Han is the family name here, Myung-sok is the first name.