Chamber of Deputies of Chile
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The Chamber of Deputies of the Republic of Chile (Spanish: Cámara de Diputados) is the lower house of Chile's bicameral Congress. Its organisation and its powers and duties are defined in articles 42 to 59 of Chile's current constitution.
It comprises 120 deputies, who are elected to four-year terms, by direct universal suffrage, from 60 two-member electoral districts. Deputies must: be aged at least 21; not be disqualified from voting; have finished secondary school or its equivalent; and have lived in the corresponding electoral district for at least two years prior to the election.
Chile's congressional elections are governed by a unique binomial system that rewards coalition slates. Each coalition can run two candidates for each electoral district's two Chamber seats. Typically, the two largest coalitions in a district divide the seats, one each, among themselves. Only if the leading coalition ticket out-polls the second-place coalition by a margin of more than two-to-one does the winning coalition gain both seats.
The Chamber of Deputies 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 120 km west of the capital, Santiago. This new building replaced the old National Congress, located in downtown Santiago.
The Chamber of Deputies is currently (circa 2005) composed of 65 CPD deputies (20 Christian Democrats, 21 PPD, fifteen Socialists, seven PRSD and two independents), 54 APC deputies (33 UDI, 19 RN and two independents) and one FRI deputee
