Politics

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 pluriform multi-party system. 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.

Constitution

Chile's Constitution was approved in a national plebiscite in September 1980, under the military government of President Augusto Pinochet. It entered into force in March 1981. After Pinochet's defeat in the 1988 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.

Executive Branch

Chile elects its President by popular vote for a four-year term. The President appoints the cabinet. The President is constitutionally barred from serving consecutive terms.

Legislative Branch

The bicameral National Congress (Congreso Nacional) consists of the Senate (Senado) and the Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados). The Senate is made up of 38 members elected from regions or subregions which 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 in December 11, 2006. The next congressional elections are scheduled for December 2009.

Chile's congressional elections are governed by a unique binomial 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.

Elections are very labour 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 penalised 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.

Judicial Branch

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. Chile provides for a very limited judicial review of legislative acts in the Supreme Court. It does not accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction.

From the year 2000, 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 17th, 2005.

Defence

Chile's Armed Forces are subject to civilian control exercised by the President through the Minister of Defence. The President has the authority to remove the commanders-in-chief of the armed forces. However, the Armed Forces still retain a significant autonomy from democratic decision making. For example, 10% of the revenue from Chile's copper exports flows directly into the pockets of the Armed Forces.

The Chilean Army is 55,000 strong and is organised with an Army headquarters in Santiago, seven divisions throughout its territory, an Air Brigade in Rancagua, and a Special Forces Command in Colina. The Chilean Army is one of the most professional and technologically advanced armies in Latin America.

The Chilean Navy (Armada de Chile) is 25,000 strong, including 5,000 Marines. Of the fleet of 70 surface vessels, only fourteen are operational major combatants (destroyers, frigates and boats rocket launcherand ). Those ships are based in Valparaíso. The Navy operates its own aircraft for transport, patrol and bomber. The Navy also operates four modern submarines based in Talcahuano.

The Chilean Air Force (Fuerza Aérea de Chile, FACH) has 12,500 personnel. Air assets are distributed among five air brigades headquartered in Iquique, Antofagasta, Santiago, Puerto Montt, and Punta Arenas. FACH also operates an airbase on King George Island, Antarctica and on Easter Island. The FACH started taking delivery of 10 US F-16 aircraft in 2006, along with 28 refurbished second-hand F-16's from the Royal Dutch Air Force.

After the military coup in September 1973, the Chilean national police, also known as Carabineros de Chile, were incorporated into the Defence Ministry. With the return of democratic government, the police were placed under the operational control of the Interior Ministry but remained under the nominal control of the Defence Ministry. The national police force of 30,000 men and women are responsible for law enforcement, traffic management, borders surveillance, narcotics suppression and counter-terrorism throughout Chile.

Created in 1933, the Investigation Police of Chile works as a civil police agency, similar in scope and function to the American FBI. Administratively part of the Ministry of Defence, its function is to serve as the investigative arm of the Judicial branch, carrying out the actual tasks of investigation and forensic analysis; Carabineros, by contrast, enforce the law and prevent crimes as they happen, but do not investigate crimes after the fact.

Foreign Relations

Since its return to democracy in 1990, Chile has been an active participant in the international political arena. Chile completed a 2-year non-permanent position on the UN Security Council in January 2005. Chile is an active member of the UN family of agencies and participates in UN peacekeeping activities. Chile hosted the Defence Ministerial of the Americas in 2002 and the APEC summit and the Community of Democracies ministerial in April 2005. Chile is also an associate member of Mercosur and a full member of APEC, Chile has been an important actor on international economic issues and hemispheric free trade.

The Chilean Government has diplomatic relations with most countries. It settled most of its territorial disputes with Argentina during the 1990s. Chile and Bolivia severed diplomatic ties in 1978 over Bolivia's desire to reacquire territory it lost to Chile in 1879-1883 War of the Pacific. The two countries maintain consular relations.