Parliamentary elections were held in

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

on 27 April 1997. The governing General People's Congress of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Ali Abdullah Saleh Ali Abdullah Saleh al-Ahmar (, ''ʿAlī ʿAbdullāh Ṣāliḥ al-Aḥmar;'' 21 March 1947There is a dispute as to Saleh's date of birth, some saying that it was on 21 March 1942. See: However, by Saleh's own confession, he was born in 1947 al ...

won a landslide victory, taking 187 of the 301 seats, although several opposition parties including the

Yemeni Socialist Party The Yemeni Socialist Party ( ar, الحزب الاشتراكي اليمني, ''al-Hizb al-Ishtiraki al-Yamani'', YSP) is a political party in Yemen. A successor of Yemen's National Liberation Front, it was the ruling party in South Yemen until Y ...

boycotted A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...

the election alleging that the government had harassed and arrested their party workers. The main opposition party, al-Islah, attacked the government for not carrying out economic reforms and for corruption. Voter turnout was 61.0%.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An expe ...

, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) ''Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I'', p304

Campaign

Of the 16 million people in Yemen about 4.6 million were registered to vote with about a quarter of them being women. However, only about 2.6 million people received their voting cards. Over 2,300 candidates, from 12 parties, competed for the 301 seats in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

. Most candidates were independents, however many of these were backed by either the General People's Congress or

al-Islah Islah or Al-Islah is an Arabic word usually translated as "reform", in the sense of "to improve, to better, to correct something and removing vice or to put something into a better position." Islah may also refer to: People *Islah Jad (born 1951), ...

parties. There were 19 female candidates. Each party or independent candidate had their own logo such as an owl or horse for the ballot paper to help

illiterate Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...

voters. There were few disagreements over policy between the parties.

Results

Aftermath

In two districts,

Hajjah Hajjah ( ar, حَجَّة, Ḥajjah) is the capital city of Hajjah Governorate in north-western Yemen. It is located 127 kilometres northwest of Sana'a, at an elevation of about 1800 metres. As of 2003, the Hajjah City District had a population o ...

and Dhamar the results were cancelled due to irregularities. International monitors described the elections as being 'reasonably free and fair' and 'a positive step in the democratic development of Yemen'. After the elections, 39 MPs elected as independents joined the GPC, 10 joined Al-Islah and two joined the Yemeni Socialist Party.

References

External links

Complete list of parties who contested the election
Al-Bab

Inter-Parliamentary Union The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU; french: Union Interparlementaire, UIP) is an inter-parliamentary institution, international organization of national parliaments. Its primary purpose is to promote democratic governance, accountability, and coop ...

{{Yemeni elections Elections in Yemen 1997 in Yemen

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results