Iran's watchdog has disqualified almost half the candidates bidding to stand for election to the body that chooses and supervises the supreme leader, an official said on Tuesday.
Only 30 percent of the 495 candidates who had registered to stand in the December 15 elections for the Assembly of Experts will be able to take part in the vote after the vetting process by the Guardians Council.
Abbasali Kadkhodaie, spokesman for the Guardians Council, said that some 100 of the registered candidates had pulled out of the race while 244 had been disqualified, according to the Fars news agency.
"One hundred and forty-four candidates have been retained," he said.
An unspecified number of candidates had to take an exam to ascertain whether they were sufficiently qualified in Islamic jurisprudence to be termed "mojtahed" and thus qualify to serve in the Assembly of Experts.
"No woman succeeded in passing the exam," Kadhkodaie added. The rejected candidates have until Friday to appeal the decision.
No information was available over the identities over the disqualified candidates in the election, which is being billed as a struggle between pragmatic moderates and ultraconservatives.
The moderate camp is being led by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, while the figurehead for the ultra-conservatives is the cleric Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, seen as close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The 86-member Assembly of Experts -- which is elected just once every eight years -- has the power to appoint and even oust the supreme leader, whose work it supervises.