Chile: Government

Principal Government Officials

Chief of State: President Sebastián Piñera Echenique
Head of Government: President Sebastián Piñera Echenique

Chile's Constitution was approved in a September 1980 national plebiscite. 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 included the elimination of the positions of appointed senators and senators for life, the granting of authority to the President to remove the commanders-in-chief of the armed forces, and the reduction of the presidential term from 6 to 4 years.

Presidential and congressional elections were held December 2009. In the first round of presidential elections, none of the three presidential candidates won more than 50% of the vote. As a result, the top two vote-getters--center-left Concertacion coalition's Eduardo Frei and center-right Alianza coalition's Sebastian Pinera--competed in a run-off election on January 17, 2010, which Pinera won. This was Chile's fifth presidential election since the end of the Pinochet era. All five have been judged free and fair. The President is constitutionally barred from serving consecutive terms. President Pinera and the new members of Congress took office on March 11, 2010.

Chile has a bicameral Congress, which meets in the port city of Valparaiso, about 140 kilometers (84 mi.) west of the capital, Santiago. Deputies are elected every 4 years, and senators serve 8-year terms. Chile's congressional elections are governed by a unique binomial system that rewards coalition slates. Each coalition can run two candidates for the two Senate and two Deputy seats apportioned to each electoral district. Historically, the two largest coalitions (Concertacion and Alianza) split most of the seats in a district. Only if the leading coalition ticket out-polls the second-place coalition by a margin of more than 2-to-1 does the winning coalition gain both seats.

All 120 Chamber of Deputies seats were up for election in December 2009 congressional elections. Alianza won 58, with Concertacion taking 54, Communists and Independent Regionalist Party each winning three, and independents winning two. In the Senate, where half of the 38 seats were up for election, Concertacion regained a slim majority and has 19 seats to Alianza’s 17, with independents holding the remaining two.

Chile's judiciary is independent and includes a court of appeal, a system of military courts, a constitutional tribunal, and the Supreme Court. In June 2005, Chile completed a nation-wide overhaul of its criminal justice system. The reform has replaced inquisitorial proceedings with an adversarial system, similar to that of the United States.

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. Jose Miguel Insulza, a Chilean national, was elected Secretary General of the Organization of American States in 2005 and reelected in 2010. Chile served as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors in 2007-2008 and was elected again for 2010-2012, and as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) president pro tempore until August 2009. Chile is the current leader of the Rio Group, a multilateral organization of Latin American and Caribbean countries. In October 2010, Chile applied for membership in the International Energy Agency. The country is an active member of the UN family of agencies and participates in UN peacekeeping activities; Chile currently has over 500 peacekeepers in Haiti. Chile hosted the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and related meetings in 2004. It hosted the Ibero-American Summit in November 2007 and the Progressive Governance Network in March 2009. An associate member of Mercosur, a full member of APEC, a member of the Arco del Pacifico, and a member of the Pathways to Prosperity, Chile has been an important actor on international economic issues and hemispheric free trade. Chile hosted the Americas Competitiveness Forum in September 2009.

The Chilean Government has diplomatic relations with most countries. It settled 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 1879-83 War of the Pacific. The two countries maintain consular relations and are represented at the Consul General level. In January 2008, Peru submitted a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague regarding the demarcation of its maritime border with Chile; Chile disagrees with Peru's assertion and is challenging its claim in the ICJ. Chile acceded to the International Criminal Court in June 2009.

In May 2008, then-President Bachelet announced government plans to significantly increase scholarships for Chileans to study abroad. The new Government of Chile scholarship program was launched with a goal of sending over 1,000 students/scholars overseas in 2008 and 2,500 in 2009. Program leaders estimated that approximately one-third might choose to study in the U.S.

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