SENATE OF CHILE

The 'Senate of the Republic of Chile' is the upper house of Chile's bicameral National Congress, as established in the current Constitution of Chile.

Contents

Composition

Abolition of the unelected

Historical evolution

First senate

Consultive senate

First conservative senate

Current political composition

Current senators

Additional information

See also

Notes

External links

Composition

According to the present Constitution of Chile, the Senate is composed of thirty-eight directly elected senators, chosen by universal popular suffrage vote in 19 senatorial circumscriptions. These serve eight-year terms, with half of them being replaced every fourth year. They must be eligible to vote, have completed secondary school, or its equivalent, and be at least 35 years old.
The Senate sessions at the new (1990) National Congress located in the port city of Valparaíso, which replaced the old National Congress located in downtown of capital Santiago.

Abolition of the unelected

Amendments to the Constitution, approved by a joint session of Congress on August 16 2005, eliminated non-directly elected senators from March 11 2006, the day 20 newly-elected senators were sworn in, leaving the total number of senators at 38, all directly elected. Previously, according to the Constitution of 1980, "designated" or "institutional" senators were appointed to the chamber. Two former heads of state, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle and Augusto Pinochet, were installed as senators for life. Pinochet later resigned from this position and Frei lost his seat in the 2005 reform. However, Frei later won an elective seat and is the current Senate President.

Historical evolution

The Senate of Chile was created in 1812 to support the formulations of policies of the Government Junta. Since then it has undergone several constitutional reorganizations that have altered the scope of its constitutional powers, its composition and the generation of its members.

First senate

Created by Article 7 of the ''Provisional Constitutional Manual'' of 1812. It was composed of seven titular members (one for each province) and three alternate members and was supposed to serve as a counter-balance to the executive power of the Government Junta. The senators were directly nominated by the provinces in agreement with the central government. It functioned from November, 1812 to January, 1814, when it was reorganized to better respond to the problems caused by the successive military defeats at the hands of the advancing Spanish Army.

Consultive senate

Created by Article 13 of the ''Provisional Government Manual'' of 1814. As its predecessor, it was composed of seven titular members (only) nominated by the provinces in lists of three from which they were selected by the Supreme Director. It functioned from March to July, 1814, when the Spanish Army captured Santiago, putting an end to the ''Patria Vieja'' government.

First conservative senate

Created by Title III of the Constitution of 1818. It was composed of five titular members and five alternate members selected directly by the Supreme Director. It was supposed to function only when the lower house was not in function or could not meet, and had the power to enact "provisory rules" that had the same effect as laws (hence the "conservative" moniker, because it "conserved" the power.) It functioned from October, 1818 to May, 1822.

Current political composition

Affiliation Members % Concertación (coalition) 20 52.63 Socialist Party 8 21.05 Christian Democrat Party 6 15.79 Social Democrat Radical Party 3 7.89 Party for Democracy 2 5.26 Concertación independent[1] 1 2.63 Alianza (coalition) 17 44.74 Independent Democrat Union 9 23.68 National Renewal 8 21.05 Independent 1 2.63 Total 38 100

Current Senate Composition                                                                               Color Key:   '= Concertación'   '= Alianza'   '= Independent'

Current senators

Senate composition from March 11 2006. The current President of the Senate will serve from 2006 until 2008.

Constituency	Region	Name	Party
1	Tarapacá	Fernando Flores Labra	Ind.
		Jaime Orpis Bouchon	UDI
2	Antofagasta	Carlos Cantero Ojeda	RN
		José Antonio Gómez Urrutia	PRSD
3	Atacama	Ricardo Núñez Muñoz	PS
		Baldo Prokurica Prokurica	RN
4	Coquimbo	Evelyn Matthei Fornet	UDI
		Jorge Pizarro Soto	PDC
5	Valparaíso	Carlos Ominami Pascual	PS
		Sergio Romero Pizarro	RN
6		Nelson Ávila Contreras	PRSD
		Jorge Arancibia Reyes	UDI
7	Santiago	Guido Girardi Lavín	PPD
		Jovino Novoa Vásquez	UDI
8		Pablo Longueira Montes	UDI
		Soledad Alvear Valenzuela	PDC
9	O'Higgins	Andrés Chadwick Piñera	UDI
		Juan Pablo Letelier Morel	PS
10	Maule	Jaime Gazmuri Mujica	PS
		Juan Antonio Coloma Correa	UDI
11		Jaime Naranjo Ortiz	PS
		Hernán Larraín Fernández	UDI
12	Bío-Bío	Alejandro Navarro Brain	PS
		Hosain Sabag Castillo	PDC
13		Mariano Ruiz-Esquide Jara	PDC
		Víctor Pérez Varela	UDI
14	Araucanía	Roberto Muñoz Barra	PPD
		Alberto Espina Otero	RN
15		Guillermo Vásquez Úbeda	PRSD
		José García Ruminot	RN
16	Los Lagos	Andrés Allamand Zavala	RN
		Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (President)	PDC
17		Camilo Escalona Medina	PS
		Carlos Ignacio Kuschel Silva	RN
18	Aysen	Adolfo Zaldívar Larraín	PDC
		Antonio Horvath Kiss	RN
19	Magallanes	Carlos Bianchi Chelech	Ind.
		Pedro Muñoz Aburto	PS

Additional information

See also

★ President of the Senate of Chile

★ National Congress of Chile

★ Chamber of Deputies of Chile

Notes

1. Senator Fernando Flores was elected while he was member of the Party for Democracy. However in 2007 he resigned from the party because of disagreements with the party bosses over how to manage accusations of government corruption. Flores is currently listed as an independent, although he still belongs to the Concertación pact.

External links

★ Senate of Chile Official web site

★ Article from the Economist dealing with the Senate composition