Angry exchanges have erupted during the final televised debate before Iran’s presidential election next week.<\/p>\n
President Hassan Rouhani accused one of his rivals of abusing religion to win power and another of wanting to beat up students.<\/p>\n
In return he was accused of corruption, economic mismanagement and failing to bring any benefits from a landmark nuclear deal.<\/p>\n
Mr Rouhani is seeking a second four-year term in next Friday’s election.<\/p>\n
Although seen by some as a reforming figure, Mr Rouhani has cast himself more as a moderate pragmatist working within the establishment.<\/p>\n
It was, however, clear that the reformist vote remained an important focus, given the three hours of fierce exchanges with hardline opponents.<\/p>\n
Who are the candidates?<\/p>\n
Iran election: Economy emerges as critical factor<\/p>\n
Iran election: Why it mattersw<\/p>\n
Could women decide Iran’s next president?<\/p>\n
How Iran is ruled<\/p>\n
Cleric Ebrahim Raisi, seen by some as a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former Republican Guard commander and police chief, were his main targets.<\/p>\n
Mr Rouhani said: “Mr Raisi, you can slander me as much you wish. As a judge of the clerical court, you can even issue an arrest order. But please don’t abuse religion for power.”<\/p>\n
The president attacked Mr Qalibaf’s handling of protests when police chief in the late 1990s and early 2000s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Angry exchanges have erupted during the final televised debate before Iran’s presidential election next week. President Hassan Rouhani accused one of his rivals of abusing religion to win power and another of wanting to beat up students. In return he was accused of corruption, economic mismanagement and failing to bring any benefits from a landmark nuclear deal. Mr Rouhani is seeking a second four-year term in next Friday’s election. Although seen by some as a reforming figure, Mr Rouhani has cast himself more as a moderate pragmatist working within the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6782,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6780\/revisions\/6782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}