Park Geun-hye was 22 years old when she washed the blood from her assassinated mother's dress. Five years later, she recalls in her autobiography, she held her father's blood-soaked shirt after the South Korean strongman was shot dead.

Now, both hampered and helped by the contrasting legacies of her murdered parents, the 60-year-old Park appears on the cusp of becoming South Korea's first female president.

Park was chosen as presidential candidate for the ruling conservatives last week and polls show she is the front-runner for a December election.