Park Geun-hye
18th President (2013–2017), removed from office by the Constitutional Court’s impeachment ruling in March 2017
The daughter of Park Chung-hee, she led the Grand National Party. Elected in 2012 as the Saenuri Party candidate, she became Korea's first woman president. During her term the Sewol ferry disaster occurred in 2014, she reached an agreement with Japan on the 'comfort women' issue in 2015, and in 2016 she shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex in response to North Korean nuclear and missile tests. In 2016 an influence-peddling scandal came to light, mass candlelight rallies followed, and in December the National Assembly passed an impeachment motion. In March 2017 she became the first president removed from office by a Constitutional Court ruling. In January 2021 the Supreme Court upheld her prison sentence in the influence-peddling and related cases, and she received a special pardon that December.