ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – A victor of Iraq’s recent elections was disqualified on Tuesday after several complaints were reported accusing him of appointing roughly 1,500 men in a “ghost unit” within a Shiite militia, claims dismissed by the expelled lawmaker as “defamation,” whose representatives in turn threatened to exact “tribal justice.”

Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) revoked the certification of Muhannad al-Khazraji’s election win, a representative of the Iran-backed Shiite Badr Organization, “for violating the provisions of Article (7/Third) of the Law on Elections… which stipulated the requirement of good conduct and behavior,” the commission stated in a document.

The commission confirmed that it will withhold “the votes he received on election day and the votes cast for him on the list from which he was nominated.”

The decision followed circulating reports that a number of citizens in Baghdad filed a complaint to the electoral commission, regarding the appointment of the aforementioned figure of young men to a fictional brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

One of the individuals who filed a complaint said in a televized interview that the appointment mechanism was published on the candidate’s social media account, adding that “we went to the specified location, where we were transported by cars in batches, with each person required to bring 10 electoral cards, and they asked us to swear on the Holy Quran, then we were forced to sign a pledge worth 20 million Iraqi dinars."

In response, Khazraji’s office denounced the reports as “defamation” against him and threatened to take “tribal justice.”

"We strongly condemn what phantom channels and pages are doing by spreading false and misleading news through the media… these allegations are baseless and aim to mislead public opinion and constitute deliberate defamation paid for by weak-minded individuals,” the candidate said.

The representatives of the disqualified candidate said in a press conference that they “strongly denounce the organized attack that targeted Khazraji and his offices in Baghdad, which has no connection to the truth.”

"We are the sons of prominent tribes, and we will take our tribal and moral rights regarding this defamation," they added.

Considered one of the most salient pro-Iran groups operating in the country, the Badr Organization has been described by US Congressman Joe Wilson “mother of all Iran-backed terror groups in Iraq.”

More than 800 candidates have been excluded from the Iraqi parliament, with the dismissals having continued even after the conclusion of the parliamentary elections earlier in November, under various pretexts and most commonly for violations of “good conduct.”

Iraq concluded its sixth parliamentary elections on November 11, in which nearly 7,750 candidates competed for the Iraqi legislature’s 329 seats.