TEHRAN -- The Guardian Council has approved another 300 candidates for next month’s parliamentary elections who had initially been banned, GC spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaii announced on Saturday.

Kadkhodaii predicted that more rejected candidates would be approved by the Guardian Council in the next few days.
Last Tuesday, the GC approved over 280 candidates who had previously been disqualified from running in the parliamentary poll.
Although 7,200 prospective candidates registered for the parliamentary elections, over 2,200 -- most of them reformists -- were disqualified last month by the vetting officials.
In response to the question of a reporter, who asked if the fact that only one percent of the 280 previously rejected hopefuls whose candidacies were approved last Tuesday are from the reformist camp is a sign that the election will not be truly competitive, Kadkhodaii said that he does not believe that the stated percentage is correct, adding, “And the elections will be competitive in all constituencies.”
There is no bias in regard to party affiliation or political leanings in the Guardian Council’s vetting of prospective candidates for the Majlis election, “and how many conservatives or reformists have been approved is irrelevant,” the GC spokesman told reporters at his weekly press briefing.
Saturday was the deadline for disqualified candidates to file petitions to the Guardian Council, which has the final say over who can stand.
Asked about National Confidence Party leader Mahdi Karrubi’s criticism of the election law, which he says has not properly defined “practical commitment to Islam” as a prerequisite for the qualification of a candidate, Kadkhodaii said, “We also believe that the election system… is defective and that it is necessary to amend the election law.