Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been accused by the opposition to follow an "immoral" election campaign, the labour news agency ILNA reported Friday. During a televised live debate Wednesday with his main challenger Mir-Hossein Moussavi, Ahmadinejad accused ex-president Akbar Hashemi- Rafsanjani and his children of corruption, and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami of claiming to be a doctor although not having a PhD degree.
The incumbent president also charged Moussavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, of not having a PhD degree as she states.
"This is indeed an immoral approach in the pre-election time which could even reach dangerous dimensions," Rahnavard said, as she presented her PhD document from the Tehran Free University from the year 1995.
"I am really wondering whether the country has no other problems than my academic degree," she said.
Observers consider the accusations against Rahnavard as the biggest mistake made by Ahmadinejad in the live TV debate, saying it had backfired and brought plus points for Moussavi who succeeded in remaining calm despite the charges against his wife.
The heated TV debate between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi has so far been the highlight of the campaign for the June 12 presidential elections.
For the first time in Iran's post-revolution history, the president of the republic was harshly criticized by a challenger live on TV - with Moussavi going as far as claiming the president's performance was a source of humiliation for the Iranian people, for whom he "truly felt sorry."
The background to what was being dubbed the "PhD battle" is the case of interior minister Ali Kordan, who was forced to resign last year for having allegedly presented a false PhD document to the parliament.
Kordan had claimed to have an honorary doctorate from Oxford which the British university categorically denied having ever issued.
Kordan was eventually impeached and dismissed by the Iranian parliament last November for having presented a false degree in his biography.
The issue, one of the biggest embarrassments for the Ahmadinejad government in the last four years, has been a top issue in the election campaign and frequently used by the opposition, including Moussavi, against the president.
Within the same context, Ahmadinejad also questioned Khatami's doctor title used during his eight-year presidency (1997-2005) but the former reformist president has not yet reacted to the charges.
In case of ex-president Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad went as far as accusing him and his children of corruption and having made "billions" during his presidential term (1989-1997).
Rafsanjani is currently head of the Expediency Council, a body in charge of mediating in legislative disputes.
The Expediency Council in a letter to the head of state television network IRIB asked for Rafsanjani to be given the right to reply to the accusations.
Moussavi accused Ahmadinejad of being "quite generous as far as accusations are concerned" and said it was quite unfair to make serious charges against senior officials without them being present.
Meanwhile Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - without mentioning Ahmadinejad by name - has called on the candidates to refrain from accusations and insults against rivals.
