TEHRAN - The race to become Iran's next president is turning nasty, with frontrunner Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his family the target of increasing attacks over money and morality.
Rafsanjani, who was president from 1989 to 1997, opened his campaign for the June 17 election by vowing to save Iran from what he called "extremists" -- a clear shot at the hardliners he is hoping to trounce.
But they are fighting back, clearly angered at Rafsanjani's claim to be the only credible figure on offer to the electorate.
One hardline MP, Elias Naderan, has openly accused one of Rafsanjani's sons -- Mehdi Hashemi -- of helping to fund the campaign by skimming cash from an oil ministry branch that deals with economising fuel.
Mehdi Hashemi has denied the allegation, but the accusations keep coming.
The right-wing press have latched onto the story and are pointing at another of Rafsanjani's sons, Mohsen Hashemi, claiming he was fired from heading the Tehran Metro organisation.
"Millions of Video CDs have also been pressed. They are against Rafsanjani and his children. They are accusing them of not respecting Islamic values and profitting from their positions," a close aide to Rafsanjani told AFP.
The attacks come as Rafsanjani, seen as a pragmatic conservative in favour of improved ties with the West and economic liberalisation, has been placed by informal opinion polls as a clear frontrunner in the election race.
Sniping at Rafsanjani over his alleged fortune is nothing new in Iran, but blatant public attacks against him and his family is.
Also the target of hardliners is his feminist daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, who recently found herself being slurred by the ultra-conservative Ya Lessarat newspaper -- an organ of the Ansar Hezbollah militia.
She has been accused of writing a book entitled "100 Iranian Heroines". The paper says it includes Ashraf Pahlavi -- the sister of the late shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was ousted in 1979.
Faezeh Hashemi has already been at odds with hardliners, after she set up the magazine Zan ("Woman") and irked hardliners with feminist articles. She has since quit the political scene, and is now living and studying in Britain.
Rafsanjani himself has already been the target of virulent attacks but from the reformist camp, the other side of Iran's political spectrum. That was in 2000, when confident moderates succeeded in pushing him out of parliament.
According to sources close to Rafsanjani, he delayed the announcement of his candidacy until the very last moment this time in order to limit the potential for such attacks.
His detractors, however, have been quick. Someone has published a mysterious tabloid magazine called "The Sky of Friendship", which claims to be a "tribune for Iranian millionnaires".
The magazine's first issue also identifies Rafsanjani as "Iran's richest man" -- something the top cleric has been at pains to deny.
The Baztab news website, close to hardline presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai, has also been enjoying pictures of Rafsanjani taken during a meeting with young people -- the section of the population that helped incumbent President Mohammad Khatami cruise to office twice.
One shows Rafsanjani's out of focus profile and the direct, admiring gaze of a young girl, whose hair is not quite totally covered by her headscarf. Another photo shows him seated next to a young man wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt, something else that rattles Iran's religious right-wing.
But for Rafsanjani's campaign, it seems that anny publicity is good publicity -- especially in their effort to bring out the voters in a country where two-thirds of the population is under 30.
According to one Rafsanjani aide, "the hardline campaign will have the opposite effect to what they are trying to do."

05/18/2005 12:56 GMT