By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, July 28 (Yonahp) -- National sports governing bodies pleaded for help from authorities Tuesday after being locked out of their workplaces by a prolonged protest over ballot shortages in last month's local elections.

National governing bodies for nine sports, including handball and fencing, are housed inside Olympic Park Handball Gymnasium in southern Seoul. The stadium served as a ballot counting site for the June 3 local elections. When ballot shortages temporarily suspended voting at several polling stations, protesters showed up on June 5 to block access to the gym, claiming election fraud and demanding a rerun of the elections.

The sports federations have been denied access to their offices since and have been forced to set up temporary working stations to handle their administration.

With the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games less than two months away, representatives for these federations asked for a swift normalization of their operations during a joint press conference at the National Assembly.

"Electronic equipment and materials necessary for our administrative work are inside our offices, and we are experiencing difficulties performing essential business," they said in a joint statement. "We are concerned that this will affect our preparations for the Asian Games."

Their plea came four days after the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee, the top national sports organization, said it would consider taking civil and criminal action against protesters while also contemplating a suit for compensation against the National Election Commission.

"We would like to ask the National Assembly and other relevant authorities for their cooperation in granting us access to our offices so that we can bring out essential materials," the federations said. "During this process, transparency must be guaranteed in order to ensure that public trust regarding preserving and managing ballot boxes will not be damaged and there will not be any unnecessary misunderstanding."

jeeho@yna.co.kr

(END)

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