2003 in politics
Events
- January 1: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva takes office as president of Brazil.
- January 1: Pascal Couchepin takes office as president of Switzerland.
- January 1: Bill Richardson takes office as Governor of New Mexico and Jennifer Granholm as Governor of Michigan.
- January 2: Mitt Romney is inaugurated as Governor of Massachusetts.
- January 5: Rolandas Paksas wins presidential elections in Lithuania. He takes office on February 26.
- January 6: Felix Camacho takes office as governor of Guam.
- January 6: Dave Freudenthal takes office as Governor of Wyoming, Janet Napolitano as Governor of Arizona, Jim Doyle as Governor of Wisconsin and Tim Pawlenty as Governor of Minnesota.
- January 7: Don Carcieri takes office as Governor of Rhode Island and Mike Rounds as Governor of South Dakota.
- January 8: Jim Douglas takes office as Governor of Vermont and John Baldacci as Governor of Maine.
- January 8: A new government is approved in Montenegro; Milo Djukanovic becomes prime minister.
- January 9: Craig Benson takes office as Governor of New Hampshire.
- January 10: In elections in Djibouti, the Union for a Presidential Majority wins 62.2% of the vote against 36.9% for the Union for a Democratic Alternative.
- January 13: Brad Henry takes office as Governor of Oklahoma, Kathleen Sebelius as Governor of Kansas, Rod Blagojevich as Governor of Illinois, Sonny Perdue as Governor of Georgia, Ted Kulongoski as Governor of Oregon.
- January 15: Lucio Gutiérrez takes office as president of Ecuador.
- January 15: Mark Sanford takes office as Governor of South Carolina and Robert L. Ehrlich as Governor of Maryland.
- January 17: Hans Enoksen of the Siumut party forms a new Greenland government with the Atassut party.
- January 18: Phil Bredesen takes office as Governor of Tennessee.
- January 19: In Cuban parliamentary elections all candidates are elected unopposed.
- January 20: Bob Riley takes office as Governor of Alabama.
- January 21: Ed Rendell takes office as Governor of Pennsylvania.
- February 3: John Snow is made U.S. treasury secretary.
- February 4: Yugoslavia is renamed to Serbia and Montenegro converting the federal republic to a looser union.
- February 9: Presidential elections in Montenegro fail again when the turnout is below 50%.
- March 15 coup in Central African Republic.
- March 15: Hu Jintao takes office as President of the People's Republic of China
- March 16: Wen Jiabao becomes Premier of the People's Republic of China.
- March 16: Elections for the parliament are held in Finland. See Politics of Finland.
- April 9: Government of Saddam Hussein ended in Iraq.
- May 25: Néstor Kirchner becomes president of Argentina.
- July 16: Coup in São Tomé and Príncipe, reversed on July 23.
- August 11: Moses Blah replaces Charles Taylor as president of Liberia.
- September 9: Indiana lieutenant governor Joe Kernan becomes acting governor when governor Frank O'Bannon suffers a stroke, and is officially sworn in as governor when O'Bannon dies a few days later. Both are Democrats.
- September 14: Coup in Guinea-Bissau.
- October 2: Canadian province of Ontario conducts a general election to elect members to the Ontario government. The election, which was called by Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Premier Ernie Eves, is majority won by the Dalton McGuinty-led Ontario Liberal Party.
- October 3: Richard Butler is sworn in as Governor of Tasmania.
- October 3: Laila Freivalds is appointed foreign minister of Sweden.
- October 5: Palestinian President Yasir Arafat installs Ahmed Qureia as prime minister of an emergency cabinet.
- October 5: Valentina Matvienko is elected governor of Saint Petersburg over Anna Markova.
- October 7: Teresa Patrício Gouveia becomes Foreign Minister of Portugal replacing António Martins da Cruz.
- October 7: Giovanni Lajolo is appointed foreign minister of the Vatican.
- October 14: Gyude Bryant takes office as chairman of the National Transitional Government of Liberia.
- October 17: Carlos Mesa is sworn in as president of Bolivia after the resignation of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.
- October 29: José Alperovich takes office as governor of Tucumán.
- November 1: Jalal Talabani takes up the rotating presidency of the Governing Council of Iraq.
- November 1: Ilya Klebanov is appointed plenipotentiary of the president of Russia in the Severo-Zapadny federal district.
- November 5: Olene S. Walker is sworn in as governor of Utah after the resignation of Mike Leavitt.
- November 6: Danny Williams is sworn in as premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.
- November 6: Sabas Pretelt de la Vega is named Interior Minister of Colombia after the resignation of Fernando Londoño Hoyos.
- November 6: Michael Howard replaces Iain Duncan Smith as leader of the Conservative Party in the U.K.
- November 7: Mohamed Vall Ould Bellal becomes foreign minister of Mauritania.
- November 17: Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as governor of California.
Deaths
- January 5: Roy Jenkins, former president of the European Commission (1977-1981)
- January 10: C. Douglas Dillon, former treasury secretary of the United States (1961-1965)
- January 12: Leopoldo Galtieri, former president of Argentina (1981-1982)
- January 27: Henryk Jablonski, former chairman of the Council of State of Poland (1972-1985)
- February 1: Richard Lyng, former U.S. secretary of agriculture (1986-1989)
- February 13: Walt W. Rostow, former U.S. national security advisor (1966-1968)
- February 20: Orville L. Freeman, former U.S. secretary of agriculture (1961-1969)
- March 1: Fidel Sánchez Hernández, former president of El Salvador (1967-1972)
- March 10 Bernard Dowiyogo president of Nauru.
- March 30: Valentin Pavlov, former prime minister of the Soviet Union (1991)
- April 30: Aureliano Chaves, former Brazilian vice president (1979-1985)
- May 15: Constantin Dascalescu, former prime minister of Romania (1982-1989)
- June 10: Donald Regan, former U.S. treasury secretary (1981-1985) and White House chief of staff (1985-1987)
- June 25 Lester Maddox segregationist governor of Georgia from 1967 to 1971.
- June 26: Strom Thurmond, longtime U.S. senator
- August 16: Idi Amin, former president of Uganda (1971-1979)
- August 19: Carlos Roberto Reina, former president of Honduras (1994-1998)
- August 20: Igor Farkhutdinov, Russian politician, governor of Sakhalin (killed in plane crash).
- August 23: Michael Kijana Wamalwa, sitting vice-president of Kenya
- September 11: Anna Lindh, foreign minister of Sweden (assassinated).
- October 15 Mokhtar Ould Daddah former president of [[Mauritania.
November 20 David Dacko former president of Central African Republic.