Park Geun-hye has done it. She has become the first female president of South Korea. Never mind that she is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, the army strongman who ruled in dictatorial style for 18 years until 1979. The South Korean people think she is the one who can reduce the influence of the chaebol, the huge family-run conglomerates, and tackle income inequality. Both Ms Park and the opposition candidate, Moon Jae-in, made these central policy issues in the run-up to Wednesday’s election.

Ms Park must deliver against a challenging backdrop. South Korea’s quarterly economic growth has fallen to its slowest in three years. Domestic demand is stifled by mounting household debt, which stood at 85 per cent of gross domestic product last year. Ability to redistribute income is hampered by low tax revenues and social welfare spending – only 20 per cent and 8 per cent of economic output respectively, against more than 30 and 25 per cent in developed countries, says Nomura.

The problem with breaking the influence of the chaebol, however, is South Korea’s increasing dependence on them for growth. The combined assets of the top five chaebol such as Samsung, Hyundai and LG are equivalent to 57 per cent of economic output this year, compared with slightly more than a third in 2007. A competitive won (still a fifth below pre-crisis levels on a trade-weighted basis, according to Capital Economics) has helped the likes of Samsung and Hyundai to stay competitive, enabling exports to contribute 58 per cent of Korea’s GDP in the first half. And their dominance in the Kospi helped the benchmark index return 10 per cent during the past five years, while Japan’s Nikkei and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng both fell.