Parliamentary elections were held in Yemen on 27 April 2003 to elect all 301 members of the House of Representatives for a six-year term. The elections had originally been scheduled to take place in 2001. The General People's Congress of President Ali Abdullah Saleh received 58% of the vote, increasing its majority in the parliament with 229 MPs.
As of 2025, these remain the most recent parliamentary elections in Yemen, as the country fell into civil war eleven years later.
Campaign
The elections were conducted under a new electoral code, the General Elections and Referendum Law, which was adopted by Parliament in November 2000 and approved in a national referendum in February 2001. All 301 members of Parliament were elected from single-member constituencies using a first-past-the-post voting system. The official campaign period lasted from April 8 to April 26.
Nineteen parties fielded a total of 991 candidates for the 301 seats in the House of Representatives, in addition to 405 independent candidates. Over eight million Yemeni citizens were registered to vote, with the number of registered women voters almost doubling since 1997 (3.4 million compared to 1.8 million).
Conduct
Although the election was deemed to be more free and fair than in previous years, there were still concerns about the conduct of the vote. The National Democratic Institute noted that:
The atmosphere of anxiety in the run-up to the elections caused by fears of violence, as well as heavy-handed and coercive measures on and after election day by elements of the ruling GPC in many polling stations across the country are troubling. There were credible reports of election law violations including political intimidation, underage voting, improper behavior by security forces, vote buying and obstruction by ruling party counting commissioners.[1]
Results
The General People's Congress was immediately joined by 12 independents. Results in three seats were invalidated.[2] Despite the increase in the number of women voters, only one woman was elected, down from two in the 1997 elections.
On 10 May 2003, the new House of Representatives convened its first meeting and re-elected Abdullah ibn Husayn al-Ahmar as its Speaker.
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Member State of the Arab League 
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