An Iranian hardline vetting body has reinstated another 250 candidates who had been barred from running for the country’s March parliament election, the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The vote for 290-seat parliament, dominated by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supporters, is a test for the popularity of the president who came to power in 2005 vowing to share out oil wealth more fairly but failed to curb hiking inflation.