Politics of Chile

Chile

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Chile

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The politics of Chile takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Chile is both head of state and head of government, and of a formal multi-party system that in practice behaves like a two-party one, due to binominalism. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the National Congress. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

Chile's current Constitution was approved in a national plebiscite in September 1980, under the military government of dictator Augusto Pinochet. It entered into force in March 1981. After Pinochet left power in the 1988, saying this country was ready to keep going along with a plebiscite, the Constitution was amended to ease provisions for future amendments to the Constitution. In September 2005, President Ricardo Lagos signed into law several constitutional amendments passed by Congress. These include eliminating the positions of appointed senators and senators for life, granting the President authority to remove the commanders-in-chief of the armed forces, and reducing the presidential term from six to four years while also disabling immediate re-election.

Legislative branch

Main article: National Congress of Chile

The bicameral National Congress (Congreso Nacional) consists of the Senate (Senado) and the Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados).

Chile's congressional elections are governed by a unique binominal system that rewards coalition slates. Each coalition can present two candidates for the two Senate and two lower-chamber seats apportioned to each chamber's electoral districts. Typically, the two largest coalitions split the seats in a district. Only if the leading coalition ticket outpolls the second-place coalition by a margin of more than 2-to-1 does the winning coalition gain both seats. The political parties with the largest representation in the current Chilean Congress are the centrist Christian Democrat Party and the conservative Independent Democratic Union (Unión Demócrata Independiente). The Communist Party and the small Humanist Party failed to gain any seats in the 1998 elections.

Elections are very labor intensive but efficient, and vote counting normally takes place the evening of the election day. One voting table, with a ballot-box each, is set up for at-most 200 names in the voting registry. Each table is manned by five people (vocales de mesa) from the same registry. Vocales have the duty to work as such during a cycle of elections, and can be penalized legally if they do not show up. A registered citizen can only vote after his identity has been verified at the table corresponding to his registry. Ballots are manually counted by the five vocales, after the table has closed, at least eight hours after opening, and the counting witnessed by representatives of all the parties who choose to have observers.

The Senate is made up of 38 members elected from regions or subregions. Senators serve approximately eight-year terms.

The Chamber of Deputies has 120 members, who are elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms. The last congressional elections were held on December 11, 2006. The next congressional elections are scheduled for December 2009.

The current Senate composition is as follows: 20 seats are held by the Coalition of Parties for Democracy (CPD): Six Christian Democrats (PDC), eight Socialists (PS), three Party for Democracy (PPD) and three Social Democrat Radical Party (PRSD); 17 by the Alliance for Chile (APC): nine Independent Democrat Union (UDI) and eight National Renewal (RN); and one independent leaning right.

The current lower house—the Chamber of Deputies —contains 65 members of the governing coalition: 21 Christian Democrats (PDC), 15 Socialists (PS), 22 Party for Democracy (PPD) and seven Social Democrat Radical Party (PRSD); 54 from the center-right Alliance for Chile(APC): 34 Independent Democrat Union (UDI) and 20 National Renewal (RN); and 1 from the Independent Regional Force (FRI) coalition: 1 Regionalist Action Party of Chile (PAR).

Since 1987 the Congress operates in the port city of Valparaíso, about 110 kilometers (~70 mi.) northwest of the capital, Santiago. However some commissions are allowed to meet in other places, especially Santiago. Congressional members have tried repeatedly to relocate the Congress back to Santiago, where it operated until the Chilean Coup of 1973, but have not been successful. The last attempt was in 2000, when the project was rejected by the Constitutional Court, because it allocated funds from the national budget, which, under the Chilean Constitution, is a privilege of the President.

Legal system

Main article: Law of Chile

Chile's judiciary is independent and includes a court of appeal, a system of military courts, a constitutional tribunal, and the Supreme Court. The judges on the Supreme Court or Corte Suprema are appointed by the president and ratified by the Senate from lists of candidates provided by the court itself. The president of the Supreme Court is elected by the 21-member court.

Chile's legal system is civil law based. It is primarily based on the Civil code of 1855, derived from Spanish law and subsequent codes influenced by European law of the last half of the 19th Century. It does not accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction.

From the year 2000 onward, Chile completely overhauled its criminal justice system; a new, US-style adversarial system has been gradually implemented throughout the country with the final stage of implementation in the Santiago metropolitan region completed on June 9, 2001

Political parties and elections

For other political parties see List of political parties in Chile. An overview on elections and election results is included in Elections in Chile.

Main article: Chilean presidential election, 2005

e • d Summary of the 11 December 2005 and 15 January 2006 Chilean presidential election results

Candidates and nominating parties	1st round		2nd round
	Votes	%	Votes	%
Michelle Bachelet Jeria – Socialist Party of Chile/CPD	3,190,691	45.96	3,723,019	53.49
Sebastián Piñera Echenique – National Renewal	1,763,694	25.41	3,236,394	46.50
Joaquín Lavín Infante – Independent Democratic Union	1,612,608	23.23
Tomás Hirsch Goldschmidt – Humanist Party/JPM	375,048	5.40
Total valid votes	6,942,041	100.00	6,959,413	100.00
Null votes	180,485	2.50	154.972	2.16
Blank votes	84,752	1.18	47,960	0.67
Total votes (Turnout 87.67% / 87.12%)	7,207,278	100.00	7,162,345	100.00
Total voters enrolled	8,220,897	—	8,220,897	—
Source: Tricel, Tricel

Main article: Chilean parliamentary election, 2005

e • d Chilean parliamentary election results

Coalitions and parties		Chamber of Deputies			Senate
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes (2005)	% (2005)	Seats 20051	Seats 20012	Total
A	Independent Regional Force (Fuerza Regional Independiente)	77,213	1.17	1	30,344	0.63	0	0	0
	-National Alliance of Independents (Alianza Nacional de los Independientes)	20,191	0.31	0	13,076	0.27	0	0	0
	-Regionalist Action Party of Chile (Partido de Acción Regionalista de Chile)	26,698	0.40	1	no candidates
	-Independents List A	30,324	0.46	0	17,268	0.36	0	0	0
B	Concert of Parties for Democracy (Concertación de Partidos Por la Democracia)	3,417,207	51.76	65	2,658,998	55.73	11	9	20
	-Christian Democrat Party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano)	1,370,501	20.76	20	1,418,089	29.72	5	2	7
	-Party for Democracy (Partido por la Democracia)	1,017,956	15.42	21	512,296	10.73	1	2	3
	-Socialist Party of Chile (Partido Socialista de Chile)	663,561	10.05	15	576,045	12.07	4	4	8
	-Social Democrat Radical Party (Partido Radical Socialdemócrata)	233,564	3.54	7	114,515	2.40	1	1	2
	-Independents List B	131,625	1.99	2	38,053	0.79	0	0	0
C	Together We Can Do More (Juntos Podemos Más)	488,618	7.40	0	286,074	5.99	0	0	0
	-Communist Party of Chile (Partido Comunista de Chile)	339,547	5.14	0	104,687	2.19	0	0	0
	-Humanist Party (Partido Humanista)	102,842	1.56	0	69,927	1.46	0	0	0
	-Independents List C	46,229	0.70	0	111,460	2.33	0	0	0
D	Alliance for Chile (Alianza por Chile)	2,556,386	38.72	54	1,777,290	37.25	8	9	17
	-Independent Democrat Union (Unión Demócrata Independiente)	1,475,901	22.36	33	1,028,925	21.56	5	4	9
	-National Renewal (Renovación Nacional)	932,422	14.12	19	515,185	10.79	3	5	8
	-Independents List D	148,063	2.24	2	233,180	4.88	0	0	0
Independents out of pact		62,387	0.94	0	18,275	0.38	1	0	1
Total valid votes		6,601,811	100.00	120	4,770,981	100.00	20	18	38
Source: Tricel via Interior Ministry 1 Only 20 out of 38 seats were contested in this election. 2 These 18 seats were contested in the 2001 election.

Pressure groups

Pressure groups according to the CIA World Factbook:

• Student federations at all major universities
• Roman Catholic Church
• Workers' United Center of Chile trade unionists from Chile's five largest labor confederations.

International organization participation

Chile or Chilean organizations participate in the following international organizations:

Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL) Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Group of 15 (G-15) Group of 77 (G-77) Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) International Criminal Court (party since 2005) International Chamber of Commerce International Development Association (IDA) International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) International Finance Corporation (IFC) International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRCS) International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) International Labour Organization (ILO) International Monetary Fund (IMF) International Maritime Organization (IMO) Interpol International Olympic Committee (IOC) International Organization for Migration (IOM) International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

International Red Cross International Telecommunication Union (ITU) International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Latin American Economic System (LAES) Latin American Integration Association (LAIA) Mercosur (associate) Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Organization of American States (OAS) Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) Rio Group United Nations (UN) UN Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) Universal Postal Union (UPU) World Customs Organization (WCO) World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) World Health Organization (WHO) World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) World Meteorological Organization (WMO) World Tourism Organization (WToO) World Trade Organization (WTO)

See also

• Chilean presidential election, 2009
• President of Chile
• List of political parties in Chile
• Foreign relations of Chile
• Law of Chile
• Human rights in Chile
• Judiciary of Chile
• Chilean political scandals
• Augusto Pinochet

External links

• Global Integrity Report: Chile has reporting on anti-corruption in Chile
• Government of Chile
• (Spanish) National Congress
• (Spanish) Presidency
• (Spanish) Judicial Branch