ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq’s electoral body on Sunday said it has so far disqualified six candidates which won seats in the parliament in the November elections, adding that the commission will continue to study appeals until the Iraqi top court ratifies the results.

Iraq’s parliamentary elections were held on November 11, in which nearly 7,750 candidates competed for the legislature’s 329 seats.

Hasan Salman, legal advisor for Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), on Sunday revealed that six winning candidates have so far been disqualified.

“There have been real changes in the results, with some lists losing seats that were allocated to them after the disqualification of winning candidates,” Salman told state media.

The advisor said there had been a change in the women’s quota seat in Nineveh after a winning candidate was removed and the seat went to a male candidate from another list.

“Disqualification decisions based on appeals in eligibility do not require the reopening of stations or manual counting and sorting,” Salman added, noting that the IHEC’s Board of Commissioners will continue to review filed appeals until Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court ratifies the results of the elections.

Former Nineveh Governor Najm al-Jubouri, from the Nineveh for its People list, was disqualified from parliament after the IHEC’s judicial body “decided not to ratify his victory,” according to an informed source. Jubouri received the highest number of votes in Nineveh province with 39,434

In late November, the electoral body announced it had rejected over 200 appeals, none of which were of the red type classification, which refers to complaints that can have a direct impact on the results of the elections as they relate to proving tampering with ballot boxes.