Iran (AP):

Opponents of Iran's hard-line president have accused him of trying to buy votes before the June presidential election by handing out cheques and free vegetables to the poor.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has defended the payments, saying the cheques for 500,000 and one million rials about US$50 and US$100 have nothing to do with the election.

But the president's critics have seized on them as another opening to exploit one of his biggest vulnerabilities, heading into the June 12 vote, discontent over his handling of the faltering economy.

The government has been distributing the money to poor families, most of them in rural areas and small towns since last year, and in recent weeks, it broadened the distribution to include students and teachers.

It also announced that on May 10 it began making $80 payments to 5.5 million people in rural areas throughout Iran. Ahmadinejad's opponents accuse him of using the cash to win votes from people hit hard by rising inflation and unemployment.

"Attempting to win people's vote through dispensing public assets is a dangerous phenomenon employed for the first time (by Ahmadinejad's government)," said a statement yesterday by a reformist party called the Islamic Revolution Mujahedeen Organisation.

Mohammad Reza Khatami, a former deputy parliament speaker, said, "Ahmadinejad's government has no plan for the country other than handing out cheques for $100."

Ahmadinejad, who comes from a poor background himself, was elected in 2005 on a populist platform that promised to share Iran's oil revenues with every family, eradicate poverty and lower unemployment.

Officials accompanying him on his trips around Iran began handing out cash last year to citizens appealing for financial help.

Politicians on both sides of the country's reformist-conservative political divide have said such payments promote a "begging culture".