The National Congress of Chile ( es, Congreso Nacional de Chile) is the legislative branch of the government of the

Republic of Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. The National Congress of Chile was founded on July 4, 1811. It is a

bicameral Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single grou ...

legislature composed of the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

(lower house), of 155 Deputies (120 before 2017) and by the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

(upper house), formed by 43 Senators (38 before 2017) which will increase its size to 50 senators after the

next general election This is a list of the next general elections around the world in democratic polities. The general elections listed are for the government of each jurisdiction. These elections determine the Prime Minister and makeup of the legislature in a parli ...

. The organisation of Congress and its powers and duties are defined in articles 42 to 59 of the current constitution and by the Constitutional Organic Law No. 18,918. Congresschile

Congress meets in the Chile Congress building, which was built during the last years of the Pinochet regime and stands in the port city of Valparaíso, some 140 km west of the capital, Santiago. This new building replaced the

Former National Congress Building The Former National Congress Building (''ex Congreso Nacional'') is the former home of the Chilean Congress. Congress met in this building in central Santiago until Salvador Allende's socialist government was overthrown by Augusto Pinochet's milit ...

, located in downtown Santiago. On 13 September 1973, the Government Junta of Chile dissolved Congress. Statistical analysis suggest Chilean politicians in Congress "are not randomly drawn from the population, but over-represent high-income communities". As such, Chileans of Castilian-Basque, Palestinian and Jewish ancestry are overrepresented in it.

Accusations of bias in the design of the legislative electoral system

The 1980 Constitution defined a complicated scheme, unique in the world, for electing the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Each Deputy or Senator was elected from a two-member district. Parties or coalitions put two-member lists on the ballot. If the first-place list in a district won more than twice the votes of the second-place list, both its nominees were elected; otherwise, the top candidate from each list went to Valparaiso, the seat of Chile’s Congress. It has been argued this scheme was expressly designed by the Pinochet regime to favour the election of

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...

legislative majorities.Carey, John M
Malapportionment and ideological bias in Chilean electoral districts.
Dartmouth College. May 18, 2015. Several rounds of constitutional amendments have been enacted since 1980 to address this concern.Carey, John
Chile’s electoral reform.
Global Americans. May 27, 2015.

References

External links

Cámara de Diputados

Senado
{{coord, 33, 02, 52, S, 71, 36, 21, W, type:landmark, display=title Government of Chile Chile Chile *

Accusations of bias in the design of the legislative electoral system

See also

References

External links