THE CHILEAN ELECTORAL SYSTEM BEFORE 1973

Chamber of Deputies (Lower House)

Before 1973, Chile was divided in 29 electoral constituencies for the lower house elections. Each of the then existing 25 provinces represented one multi-seat constituency, with two exceptions: the province of Santiago was divided into four constituencies and Ñuble was divided into two. Each constituency returned a minimum of two members and a maximum of 18. Proportional representation (PR) was used as the electoral system, very much like that in the former Italian system or that used during the brief "reign" of PR system in France, about ten years ago. As in Italy, there was a wide number of political parties, ranging from the marxist left to the conservatives.

An example of the former Chilean electoral system is depicted in Table 1, for a fictional constituency returning five members. Each elector was allowed to vote for one candidate only. Lists were deemed to represent individual parties (or single Independent candidates). Each list could not be compromised by more candidates that the maximum number of seats allocated for that specific constituency (five, in this specific case) but lists could be compromised by less candidates than the maximum. Seats were allocated by simple PR. Once the numbers of seats allocated to each list (party) were calculated, the distribution of seats within each list was done strictly according to the individual number of votes obtained by each candidate. In contrast with the French System mentioned above, parties could not "force" the election of one individual candidate by placing his/her name at the head of the list. In Table 1 elected candidates (B, I, J, M and U) are depicted in bold. In this particular case, the "minimum common denominator" (MCD: In Chile this figure was called "cifra repartidora"), or threshold, for a list to get at least one candidate elected, was 9094 and was given here by the total votes obtained by list 5. This MCD, obviously, was obtained by simple mathematical calculations. List 3, for instance got more than three times this figure and List A got a comfortable margin above the "Threshold". As can be seen, highly popular individuals (as in the case of candidate 1) could carry other members of their list in their coattails.

Senate

Municipal (Council) elections

Presidential Elections

THE CHILEAN ELECTORAL SYSTEM AT PRESENT

Chamber of Deputies (Lower House)

During the Pinochet regime the old geo-political administrative division of the country had been altered. The old division was (hierarchically) based on:

1. 25 Provinces,
2. the intermediate divisions called "Departmentos" and,
3. the Municipalities (councils).

Under the new structure, the country was divided into 13 regions. Each region comprised several provinces; the number of provinces, at the time, had been raised to 50. The smallest administrative unit, the Municipality (council) was preserved, the "Departmento" was abolished. The number of municipalities had not changed very much from the pre-1973 era, numbering now about 330.

The fact that Pinochet had lost his plebiscite meant that a presidential election should take place on the following year (December 1989) and that a new parliament (both houses) should be elected simultaneously. Shortly after the plebiscite, the government began to work at a hurried pace to pass a law to define the new electoral system which would be operative in the upcoming elections. As regards the lower chamber, it was decided to lower the number of MPs to 120 (down from 150 in the pre 1973 era), and that there would be created 60 electoral districts, each one returning two MPs (deputies). This system was call the "binominal" (two seat) system. Proportional representation (PR) would be used in all cases.

The upper chamber (Senate) would be composed of 45 members, of which 8 would be "appointed senators" (i.e.: appointed by Pinochet and with an 8-year period). Thirty six senators would be elected by the voters. Depending on the population will be composed by two districts each and the 8 regions with the lowest population will be composed by one district each. The districts would return two senators each, the binominal PR system being applied in this case, too.

The 60 electoral districts for the lower chamber were designed so that - if the results of the 188 plebiscite were extrapolated to the coming parliamentary elections - in no such district would the NO option duplicate the YES option. The rationale for this - in a "binominal" PR system - was that the voters that favoured the NO option would vote for the Centre-Left coalition and the ones that favoured the YES option would be inclined to vote for the candidates of the right. District elections - in no such district would the NO option duplicate the YES option. The rationale for this - in a "binominal" PR system - was that the voters that favoured the NO option would vote for the Centre-Left coalition and the ones that favoured the YES option would be inclined to vote for the candidate of the right. District boundaries did, in fact, cross over provincial borders but were always contained within regional borders. The more sparsely populated region, Aysén, with only 60,000 inhabitants would return two MPs for the lower chamber and two senators. The Metropolitan Area of Santiago, on the other end, with more than 5 million people, would return 4 senators (two in each of its two senate districts) and 32 deputies (in 16 districts).

Some district boundaries were kept in suspense for some time. There were bits and ends of land that did not go into any definite district until the last minute. In the end, the electoral map looked very much like the product of gerrymandering. By principle, no municipal council was to be split in the process. Thus, councils with more than 300,000 people did constitute a single electoral district whereas, in some rural areas, the average population of a district (usually formed by several small councils) was about 150,000. This meant that rural districts would exert a disproportionate large effect upon the final composition of the parliament.

Table 2 shows an example of the current Chilean electoral system in a fictional constituency returning two MPs.

THE TWO-MEMBER ELECTORAL DISTRICTS IN CHILE

The Parliamentary Election

In the Senate the Concertación won 22 seats and the conservatives, 16; however the "appointed" senators assured the latter a working majority. By the way, the Chamber of Deputies is elected every four years while only one half of the senate does so, (as if was in the pre-1973 era, too). However, the appointed senators were due to last for at least 8 years.

The Presidential Election

The winner in 1989 was Patricio Aylwin, a Christian Democrat, backed by the centre-left Concertación, who obtained 55% of the vote, Hernán Büchi, the former Minister of Finance under Pinochet's, got 29% and Francisco Javier Errázuriz, a millionaire running as an independent, got 16%. Errázuriz, a shrewd populist, managed to sell himself as a self-made man when, in fact, he was the scion of one of the most powerful families from the old Chilean-Basque aristocracy. He also distanced himself from Pinochet after the 1988 plebiscite, saying that he had voted "YES, but with his heart on the NO" (!). He backed the "independents" that run under the populist ticket in the Parliamentary elections. None of them was elected nor even managed to get more than one fourth of the vote achieved by Errázuriz.

The following are the results of the 1989 Parliamentary elections, district by district.

SENATE

CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES

The Party for Democracy (PPD) acted like an "Umbrella Party" of a "Functional Party" in order to bring together former members of the Left, of the Centre-left parties and even well-known anti-Pinochet independents so that all these could act together without the constraints of a fixed ideology. In fact, several of his cadres and directives were simultaneously members of the Socialist party, so it is not easy to tell them apart. Together with the Christian Democrats, the party played a pivotal role in the campaign for the NO option in 1988.

The PDC, PS and PPD were the big partners of the Concertación. The PR - the erstwhile powerful party of the Chilean scene, until the early '60s - was now much faded, while the PSD, IC, Humanists-Greens and PAC were very minor partners.

There were not many differences between RN and UDI. The former tended to be composed by members of the old rightist parties (landowners, industrialists, barristers), where the latter originated from the new technocrats and young graduates from the Catholic University that had been Pinochet's most reliable ideologues. These were also fervent advocates of the "integrist" currents in the Catholic Church.

Comment on the binominal system

In contrast to the ruling coalition, the Conservative opposition coalition did not suffer the same contingency because it was composed just by two parties: National Renewal and the U.D.I. Thus, either party fought almost all parliamentary seats except when they chose to back an independent instead.

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