Park Geun-hye, the candidate for the ruling conservative Saenuri Party, harshly criticized her liberal rival Moon Jae-in on Friday for mudslinging, as the race for the Dec. 19 presidential election became tighter.

“I hereby announce an all-out war against false propaganda,” she said in a press conference. “In case any of the accusations against me turn out to be false, candidate Moon (of the Democratic United Party) should take responsibility.”

Her words came in response to a series of personal attacks from the DUP, including one that she was involved in a cult and another that she took an iPad into Monday’s televised debate in violation of the rules. 

She flatly denied the accusations.

“Our national security is under threat from elements such as the North Korean missile, but the election campaigns are filled with absurd accusations,” she said.

The conservative candidate apologized for her supporter’s controversial comment about the former independent candidate Ahn, who backed out of the race late last month while vying to be the opposition’s sole candidate.

“I apologize for the rough words that were made against Ahn in one of my rallies a few days ago,” she said.

Kang Man-hee, actor and Saenuri backer, referred to Ahn as a traitor and said that “such people deserved to die.”

After the hurried press briefing, Park left for South Gyeongsang, one of the prime battlefields for the upcoming election. Moon, who hails from the region, also spent the day campaigning in the area.

Moon’s officials accused Park of attempting to turn the public’s attention away from a probe into illicit campaigning.

The Seoul branch of the National Election Commission had decided earlier to indict a social network service campaigning chief of the Saenuri Party, identified by his surname Yoon, for breach of the public election law.

The SNS chief is suspected of spreading online postings, mostly through Twitter, in favor of Park but the Saenuri camp denied having any involvement in his actions.

“We are sorry that one of our party officials operated an illegal campaign organization,” said the situation room chief Kwon Young-se.

“The party has never given out such orders (to fabricate online postings in Park’s favor).”

Earlier in the week, the DUP and the police had raided the house of a National Intelligence Service employee, claiming that the female employee had been posting slanderous comments about Moon, under direct orders from the spy agency.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)