Press TV - Iran's Guardian Council, the election supervisory body, says following the preliminary disqualification of some nominees for the upcoming parliamentary elections, 2,000 of those previously disqualified have been approved again after more vetting.

"Out of 16,033 individuals who had been registered, we vetted nearly 4,500 individuals and fortunately the qualifications of more than 50 percent have been approved," Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman for the Guardian Council, told reporters on Saturday.

The official added that some 2,000 nominees, who had been already disqualified, have been added to the qualified list.

He said more than 20-odd percent of those registered have been disqualified who will be reassessed in the next phase of the vetting process and more people are likely to be found qualified.

Kadkhodaei said the qualifications of many individuals have been confirmed after local investigations, emphasizing that this is a mechanism  enshrined in the Constitution, which makes way for the Guardian Council to fulfill its duties with more precision.

Guardian Council launches election supervisory website for public

In a related development, Kadkhodaei told reporters on Sunday that the council has launched a supervisory website for the public to present any possible reports and documents on electoral and election campaign violations. The website's address is: mardomnazer.shora-gc.ir
"In order to receive various reports about election violations, we decided to facilitate communication with people and provide them with new means of relaying their views [to the council]," the Guardian Council's spokesman said, adding that people can send their reports "directly" through the website.
He emphasized that the website has been launched with the purpose of increasing people's supervisory role and to use public capacities in different fields of electoral violations.

The elections, which come every four years, are to be held on February 21. A second round could take place in the second month of the next year on the solar calendar (April 20-May 20, 2020) if some seats remain vacant.

Last year, Iran's Majlis (parliament) objected to a motion to increase the number of the seats, keeping the figure at 290.

A total of 57,918,000 people are eligible to cast their ballots. Therefore, there would be one lawmaker at Majlis per each 190,000-strong segment of the Iranian population.