TEHRAN: Iran held its first pre-election debate broadcast live on television as the presidential candidates traded accusations on Saturday over the country's economic crisis.
Iranians are set to elect a successor to President Hassan Rouhani on June 18 amid widespread discontent over a deep economic and social crisis caused by the reimposition of crippling sanctions after the US pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran's Guardian Council approved seven candidates to run from a field of about 600 hopefuls.
Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi is widely seen as a favourite, after the Council disqualified Ali Larijani.
On Saturday, the candidates called on hopeful Abdolnasser Hemmati, who is the country's central bank governor, to take responsibility for the crisis, and accused him of seeking to defend the government's record.
"Mr Hemmati, your governance was catastrophic, you are sitting here as a representative of Mr Rouhani," said Mohsen Rezai, a former chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Rouhani is Iran's main architect of the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers.
The accord has been on life support since then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018, and reimposed crippling sanctions.
Global powers have been meeting in Vienna since early April in a bid to revive the accord.
Hemmati instead took aim at his adversaries' economic plan, saying their pledges of massive direct financial aid were "unrealisable".
He also accused them of undermining Iran's international relations and preventing the country from benefiting from the nuclear deal.
Raisi, who took 38 per cent of the vote in the 2017 presidential election, avoided direct clashes with the reformists.
"Inflation is one of the serious problems people are facing today. The price of basic products has gone up considerably," he said, adding that the "dishonesty of certain officials" was one of the main worries of the Iranian people.
Iranian media has expressed concern in recent weeks about the risk of low voter turnout.
A record 57 per cent of Iranians stayed away from parliamentary elections in February last year in which thousands of candidates, many of them moderates and reformists, were barred from running.
Further televised debates are due to be held on Tuesday and Saturday this week.
FIRE AT IRAN STEEL PLANT: Meanwhile, a fire broke out at a steel plant in southeastern Iran, but an official said the blaze was brought under control and there was no report of casualties, the semi-official news agency Fars said on Sunday.
Ali Sadeqzadeh, the local governor in the town of Zarand, said fire fighters and emergency crew remained at the site of the Zarand Iranian Steel Co after the blaze was brought under control and that no casualties were reported, Fars said.
"A sudden overflow of molten material in the blast furnace caused a fire and smoke, and there was no explosion at the furnace site or other parts of the plant," Sadeqzadeh said, denying earlier reports that an explosion caused the fire. - - AFP/Reuters
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