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| Chile |
 This article is part of the series: |
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Other countries · Atlas Politics Portal |
Chile holds nationwide presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections. Presidential elections elect a president, who serves as chief of state and head of government for a period of four years (six years between 1994-2006 and before 1973). Parliamentary elections elect 38 senators (two for each constituency) and 120 deputies (two for each constituency). Municipal elections elect one mayor and a number of councilmen per municipality.
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Voting system
Presidential
The President is both chief of state and head of government and is directly-elected nationwide by absolute majority. If no candidate obtains such majority, a runoff between the two most voted candidates is held.
Parliamentary
Chile's bicameral Congress consists of a Chamber of Deputies (lower house) and a Senate. The country is divided into 60 constituencies for the lower house and 19 for the Senate. Each constituency elects two representatives.
For parliamentary elections political parties may run alone or grouped with other parties, forming a "pact." Each pact or off-pact party may submit up to two candidates per constituency. Independent candidates running on-pact or off-pact are also allowed. Each off-pact party and pact are a "list," and each off-pact independent candidate is a "nominee." Both candidates from the most voted list in each constituency are elected only when their votes exceed twice the amount of the second most voted list or nominee. If this fails, then the two most voted lists or nominees obtain one seat each. Within a list, the seat is awarded to the most voted candidate of the two.
The system has been much criticized, in part due to the difficulty that the most voted list can exceed twice the amount of votes of the second most voted list, opening up the possibility for a candidate of the second most voted list to be elected with a smaller percentage of the vote than that of the overall second most voted candidate. This has resulted in an almost evenly divided Congress between representatives of the governing Concert of Parties for Democracy (CPD) and of the right-wing Alliance for Chile (APC), and negating representation to candidates of the extreme-left parties within the Together We Can Do More (JPM) pact.
This system was established by the military dictatorship that ruled the country until 1990, replacing the previous proportional system. Some view this system as undemocratic, while others say it has given the country stability. In April 2007, president Michelle Bachelet sent a bill to Congress to reform this system, so that 20 additional seats in the Chamber of Deputies are elected under the rules of a proportional system, in which parties or coalitions obtaining over 5% of the votes are guaranteed representation in Congress.
Examples
In this example, List A does not "double" List B in total votes, therefore the elected candidates for Constituency X are Candidate A from List A and Candidate A from List B, even though the unelected Candidate B from List A obtained more votes than the elected Candidate A from List B.
This means that unless a list obtains an overwhelmingly large majority, it can only aspire to win 1 seat per constituency.
| List | Candidate A | Candidate B | Total | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 35% | 30% | 65% | 1 seat |
| B | 20% | 13% | 33% | 1 seat |
| C | 1% | 1% | 2% | — |
The reverse may also happen, that is, that a candidate is so strong that it helps a much weaker fellow list candidate gain a seat too.
In this case List A "doubles" List B, therefore its two candidates are elected, regardless of the fact that Candidate B of List A actually came out in fourth place, below both candidates from List B.
| List | Candidate A | Candidate B | Total | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 60% | 5% | 65% | 2 seats |
| B | 25% | 7% | 32% | — |
| C | 2% | 1% | 3% | — |
Municipal
In municipal elections, one mayor is elected per municipality by a simple majority, while councilmen seats (ranging from 6 to 10, depending on the number of electors in each municipality) are decided using the D'Hondt method.
Latest elections
Presidential election, 2005–2006
| Candidates and nominating parties | Votes 1st rnd. | % | Votes run-off | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michelle Bachelet Jeria - Socialist Party of Chile/CPD | 3,190,691 | 45.96 | 3,723,019 | 53.49 |
| Sebastián Piñera Echenique - National Renewal | 1,763,964 | 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 | 6,959,413 | 100 |
| Null votes | 180,485 | 2.5 | 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 | 7,162,345 | 100 |
| Total voters enrolled | 8,220,897 | 8,220,897 | ||
| Source: Tricel [1] (1st rnd.) / Tricel [2] (PDF) (runoff) | ||||
Parliamentary election, 2005
| 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 | |
| Independent (off-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. |
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Past elections and referendums
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See also
External links
- Archive of recent elections (Chilean Ministry of Interior)
- Archive of past elections
- Chile's Electoral Service (Servel)
- Adam Carr's Election Archive
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