South Korea's ruling party voted overwhelmingly Monday for the daughter of an assassinated strongman to be its presidential candidate.

Park Geun-hy, the daughter of Park Chung-hee, who ruled the country as a dictator from 1961 to 1979, won her New Frontier Party's presidential primary, easily beating four male candidates.

Opinion polls indicate she is the current favorite to win the presidency in the December 19 vote, which would make her South Korea's first woman president.

Park also lost her mother to an assassin's bullet when a pro-North Korean agent shot the first lady in 1974 while aiming at the president. Her father was killed by his intelligence chief in 1979.