The three major presidential camps are at loggerheads over a proposed extension of voting hours which would have a significant impact on the outcome of the closely fought presidential election.

“The right to participate in politics is not the subject of a joke. Park’s comment that it was reported incorrectly and turning the blame on the media made a joke of the public,” said Park Gwang-on, spokesman for opposition Democratic United Party nominee Moon Jae-in’s election committee.

He was referring to Saenuri Party candidate Park Geun-hye’s earlier comments, and those from DUP’s Moon Jae-in who called the change in the ruling party’s position on the issue akin to treating politics as a joke. 

“(Park) said that an individual can’t dictate the legislation or abolition, but Park is not a private individual but a member of the National Assembly and Saenuri Party’s presidential candidate who has been given the power (of the party).”

The issue picked up steam when Moon announced that he would accept the Saenuri Party’s call to revise the Political Fund Act to prevent parties that do not put forward a candidate from receiving election subsidies. The revision would also make it mandatory for a party to reimburse the government if its candidate forfeits before the votes are cast.

Moon also called on the ruling party to process the bill along with that regarding the extension of voting hours as suggested by Park’s communications chief Lee Jung-hyun on Oct. 29.

Although the stated purpose of the revision is to prevent the waste of state funds, it has been widely interpreted as being a ploy to hamper Moon and Ahn from forming a united front against Park.

The ruling party, however, is avoiding the issue saying that Lee’s comments were his “personal opinion.”

Lee has since elaborated on his initial comment that included the words “process them together” to be more in line with those of other Saenuri members.

“The word ‘process’ was used in the sense that the (bills) will be discussed and processed in the National Assembly and not in the sense that the two bills will be exchanged,” Lee told reporters on Thursday.

Moon and the DUP responded by calling the Saenuri Party’s apparent change of position a “joke.”

“(I) accepted the (proposed revision on the Political Fund Act) because (Lee Jung-hyun) said that voting hour extension will be accepted if the freeloading prevention law was accepted. But now they are saying something else. Is politics a joke?” Moon told reporters on Thursday.

The revision of the Political Fund Act has been referred to as the “freeloading prevention law” by both sides, as the Saenuri Party lawmakers who proposed the bill said that it would prevent waste of state funds.

For its part, the ruling party is focusing on developments surrounding the potential merger of Ahn and Moon’s campaigns, calling it the “real joke.”

“The collusion between Ahn and Moon is the real joke,” Saenuri Party spokesman Lee Sang-il said.

The opposition presidential candidates ― Moon and independent Ahn Cheol-soo ― have called for the voting hours to be extended by up to three hours to allow more people to vote.

The Saenuri Party and Park, on the other hand, have opposed the change claiming an imbalance between additional costs and benefits of extending the hours.

According to Park, keeping the polling stations open for two additional hours would incur costs of 10 billion won ($9.1 million).

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)