Direct presidential elections were held in Yemen for the first time on 23 September 1999.[1] Candidates had to be approved by at least 10% of the 301 members of the House of Representatives; however, in practice this meant that only two parties, the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) and Al-Islah had enough seats to nominate their candidates. However, al-Islah backed the GPC candidate, incumbent President Ali Abdullah Saleh rather than running a candidate of their own.
The only candidates that received approval from Parliament were Saleh and Najeeb Qahtan Al-Sha'abi, another member of the GPC. The main opposition candidate, Ali Saleh Obad of the Yemeni Socialist Party, failed to gain enough support in the House of Representatives; his party subsequently boycotted the elections. The reported voter turnout of 67.5% was contested by the opposition.[2]
Nominations
Nominations for presidential candidates closed on 13 July 1999. In total, 31 candidates put their names forward, though three of them were disqualified immediately for failing to meet the legal requirements:[3]
Amin Ahmad bin Ahmad Thabit (candidates must not be married to a foreigner and he had a Russian wife)
Abdullah Salih Salih Muhsin Surub (minimum age is 40, he was 38)
A candidate with a name too similar to President Saleh
The parliamentary vetting committee eliminated another four candidates, putting 24 of the 31 nominations to a parliamentary vote, in which a candidate required 31 votes to be able to run in the elections. Another candidate, Khalid al-Zarraka, did not appear on the publicised list of nominations, but was included in the parliamentary vote. Only two candidates managed to obtain the required number of votes; Saleh and Najeeb Qahtan Al-Sha'abi.[2] Twenty-one of the 25 candidates (including al-Zarraka) did not receive any votes.[3]
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Yemen portal 
