In the elections sprinkled across Asia from Japan to Indonesia to Sri Lanka this year, perhaps the most intriguing candidate is Park Geun-Hye, who seeks to be the first woman elected president of South Korea.

As she has risen in prominence over the last decade, Ms. Park, 60, has joined an elite sisterhood of Asian women who have gotten their starts on the road to political power as the daughters or widows of well-known men. Most of the women were educated in Western universities either at home or in Europe or the U.S.

Among them: the late Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and Sonia Gandhi in India, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, and most likely the best known, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma. In Indonesia is Megawati Sukarnoputri, in the Philippines are the late Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and in Japan, Makiko Tanaka.

A rare exception is Tsai Ying-wen, a scholar and government official who ran for the presidency of Taiwan last January but was defeated by the incumbent, President Ma Ying-chou. Ms. Tsai appears to have had no prominent family connections.

In Seoul, Ms. Park is the daughter of the late President Park Chung Hee, which has been at once a plus and a minus in her political career. President Park is widely credited as having driven South Korea onto the path of economic progress. At the same time, he is reviled for his sometimes brutal political repression.

As the candidate for the Saenuri, or New Frontier, Party, Ms. Park’s main opponent is Moon Jae In of the Democratic United Party. Most Korean observers say the race is too close to call although Mr. Moon may have some advantage in a society dominated by men. The vote is scheduled for Dec. 19.

Ms. Park got an early start in public diplomacy as a young woman in 1974 after her mother, Yuk Young Soo, was killed by an assassin as she listened to President Park give an independence day address. Ms. Park soon became her father’s official hostess and, by all accounts, conducted herself with the same grace as her mother.

On one occasion, she visited the construction site of an orphanage that she sponsored and quietly put the rough-tough construction stiffs, who had met her with downcast eyes and shuffling feet, at ease with gentle questions and praise.

Five years later, President Park was murdered by his security chief. Ms. Park withdrew from the public eye and did not reappear until 1998 when she was elected to the National Assembly or national legislature. She has been re-elected several times, each with a larger share of the vote.

She has also taken on greater responsibility for party leadership and is credited with having guided the party to success in recent elections. Some newspapers have dubbed her the “Queen of Elections.”

If she is elected, Ms. Park asserted in a recent speech, she would emphasize efforts to reunify Korea, which has been divided since the end of World War II in 1945 and was the site of a destructive war from 1950 to 1953. “We cannot wait for unification to happen,” she said, “We must shape unification so that it will happen.”

She proposed an “Alignment Policy” that would fall between former President Kim Dae Jung’s “Sunshine Policy” and the hard-line posture of the current President Lee Myung Bak.

“If it helps to foster South-North relations, I will also meet with the North Korean leader,” she said. In an interview in 1975, her father said he would be willing to meet the North Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, provided preparations had been made and something tangible would result. It was never held.

President Kim Dae Jung, however, travelled to Pyongyang in 2000 to meet with Kim Jong Il, then the leader of North Korea, amid hopes for progress toward a peaceful settlement between the two Koreas. Nothing came of that, either.

Ms. Park took a somewhat harder line toward Japan, with which Seoul has been feuding over some rocks in the water between Korea and Japan, called Dokto in Korea and Takeshima in Japanese. She said she would be firm in defending “our core national interests. Under no circumstances can we allow infringements on our sovereignty.”

She sought to position Korea between the U.S. and China, saying Korea’s relations with the U.S. would be “expanded into a comprehensive, strategic alliance.” At the same time, she asserted: “Korea’s ties with China will be upgraded commensurate with our strategic cooperative partnership.”