Chapter XIV. Internal Governance and Administration of the State
Article 112
The territory of the Republic is divided into regions and these are divided into provinces for the purpose of internal governance and administration of the State. The provinces will be divided into communes for the purpose of local administration.
The creation, suppression and denomination of regions, provinces and communes; the modification of their boundaries, as well as the location of the capitals of the regions and provinces will be established through an organic constitutional law.
Regional Governance and Administration
Article 113
The upper administration of each region will reside within a regional government, that will be charged with the social, cultural, and economic development of the region.
The regional government will be composed by a regional governor and the regional council. The regional government will enjoy juridical personhood under public law and will have its own patrimony for the purpose of exercising its duties.
The regional governor will be the executive of the regional government; the responsibility to preside over the council and exercise the functions and attributes determined by an organic constitutional law will correspond to the regional governor, in coordination with the other organs and public services created to achieve the administrative functions. Additionally, the coordination, supervision and oversight of public services that depend on or are related to the regional government correspond to the regional governor.
The regional government will be elected through a direct vote with universal suffrage. The candidate for regional governor that obtains the majority of the votes validly submitted when said majority is equivalent to at least forty percent of the validly submitted votes will be elected, according to the provisions of the respective organic constitutional law. The regional governor’s term in office will last for four years, and the regional governor may only be reelected consecutively for the following term.
If more than two candidates for regional governor present themselves and none of them obtains at least forty percent of the votes validly cast, a second vote will take place, which will be circumscribed to the candidates that received the two relatively highest vote counts and the candidate that receives the highest vote in the second election will be elected regional governor. This new vote will be verified in the form determined by the law.
For the purpose of the provisions of the two prior clauses, the votes left blank or null will be considered as votes not cast.
The respective organic constitutional law will establish the causes of inability, incompatibility, subrogation, cessation, and vacancy of the role of regional governor, without prejudice to the provisions of articles 126 and 127.
Article 114
The regional council will be an organ of a normative, decision making, and management character within the domain of competency of the regional government; the regional council will be charged with making the participation of the region’s citizenship effective and exercising the attributes that the respective organic constitutional law assigns it.
The regional council will be composed of councilors elected through a direct vote with universal suffrage, in accordance with the respective organic constitutional law. Councilors will hold office for four years and may be reelected. The same law that will establish the organization of the regional council, will determine the number of counselors that it will be composed of and their form of replacement, always ensuring that the population and the territory of the region are equally represented.
A regional counselor that loses a requite of eligibility or incurs an inability to hold office, an incompatibility, and incapacity, or another cause of cessation established by an organic constitutional law will cease his or her term.
The provisions of the prior clauses with respect to the regional council and the regional counselors will be applicable, as appropriate, to the special territories referred to in article 129.
The regional council, through an absolute majority of its members in office, will elect a president from among its members. The president of the council will hold office for four years and will cease to hold the role in the case that any of the causes indicated in the third clause are incurred, due to a removal agreed to by two thirds of the regional councilors in office or due to a resignation approved by the majority of the regional councilors.
The organic constitutional law will determine the functions and attributes of the president of the regional council.
Approving the budget of the respective region under consideration will correspond to the regional council, which will consider the resources assigned for this in the Budgetary Law, its own resources, and those that come from the programming agreements.
The Senators and Representatives that represent the senatorial and electoral districts of the region may, when they deem it appropriate, attend the sessions of the regional council and take part in its debates, without the right to vote.
Article 115
The respective organic constitutional law will determine the form and the mode in which the President of the Republic will transfer to one or more regional governments, in a temporary or definitive character, one or more competencies of the ministers and public services created to achieve the administrative function, in matters of territorial order, the fostering of the productive activities as well as social and cultural development.
Article 116
The quest for harmonic and equitable territorial development will be observed as a basic principle in the internal governance and administration of the State referred to within the present chapter. The laws that are issued for this purpose must ensure the compliance with and application of said principle, incorporating at the same time criteria of solidarity between the regions, such as to their interior in matters regarding the distribution of public resources.
Without prejudice to the resources assigned to regional governments through the Budgetary Law of the Nation in order for them to function and without prejudice to those that come from the sources mentioned in number 27 of article 19, said law will include a proportion of the total of the expenses of public investment that it determines, with the denomination of the national fund for regional development.
The Budgetary Law of the Nation will also include expenses corresponding to regionally assigned sectoral inversions whose distribution amongst the regions will follow the criteria of equity and efficiency, taking into consideration the corresponding national programs of investment. The assignment of such expenses to the interior of each region will correspond to the regional government.
At the initiative of regional governments or one or more ministries, annual or multi-annual public investment programming agreements may be concluded between regional governments, between these and one or more ministries or between regional governments and municipalities, whose compliance will be mandatory. The respective constitutional organic law will establish the general norms that will regulate the subscription, execution and enforceability of said agreements.
The law may authorize regional governments and public companies to associate themselves with natural or juridical persons for the purpose of promoting nonprofit activities or initiatives that contribute to regional development. The entities constituted for this purpose will be regulated by the communal norms applicable to the particularities.
The provisions of the prior clause will be understood to be without prejudice to the provisions of number 28 of article 19.
Article 117
In each region there will be a regional presidential delegation, headed by a regional presidential delegate that will exercise the functions and attributes of the President of the Republic in the region, according to the law. The regional presidential delegate will be the natural and immediate representative, within the territory of his or her jurisdiction, of the President of the Republic and will be nominated and remove at will by the President. The regional presidential delegate will exercise his or her functions according to the laws and the orders or instructions of the President of the Republic.
The coordination, oversight, and management of public services created through law to achieve the administrative functions that operate within the region and that depend on or are related to the President of the Republic through a Ministry will correspond to the regional presidential delegate.
Provincial Governance and Administration
Article 118
In each province there will be a provincial presidential delegation, which will be an organization that is territorially disconnected from the regional presidential delegation and will be headed by a provincial presidential delegate nominated and removed at will by the President of the Republic. In the province that is the seat of the regional capital, the regional presidential delegate will exercise the functions of the provincial presidential delegate.
The provincial presidential delegate will exercise, according to the instructions of the regional presidential delegate, oversight over the extant public services within the province. The law will determine the attributes that the regional presidential delegate may delegate to as well as the other duties that will correspond to the provincial presidential delegate.
Article 119
The provincial presidential delegates, in the cases and forms determined by the law, may designate agents to exercise their responsibilities in one or more localities.
Municipal Administration
Article 120
The local administration of each commune or group of communes that the law determines to reside within a municipality, will be governed by a mayor, who is the highest authority, and by a council.
The respective organic constitutional law will establish the mode and forms that participation of the local community in municipalities ought to assume.
Mayors in the cases and forms determined by an organic constitutional law may designate agents to exercise their responsibilities in one or more localities.
The municipalities are autonomous public corporations, with juridical personhood and their own patrimony, whose purpose is to satisfy the needs of the local community and ensure their participation in the economic, social, and cultural progress of the commune.
An organic constitutional law will determine the functions and attributes of the municipalities. Said law will also indicate the areas of the municipalities’ competence in which the mayor, with the agreement of the council or upon the request of two thirds of the councilors in office, or upon the request of the proportion of citizens that the law establishes, will submit to a non-binding consult or to a plebiscite, as well as the opportunities, the form of the convocation and the effects.
The municipalities may associate with each other according to the respective organic constitutional law, and these associations may enjoy public juridical personhood. Additionally, they may constitute or form nonprofit private corporations or foundations whose purpose is the promotion and diffusion of the arts, culture, sport, or the fostering of community productivity and community development projects. Municipal participation in them will be guided by the cited organic constitutional law.
The municipalities may establish territories denominated as neighborhood units for the purpose of sustainable development and the adequate channeling of citizens’ participation within the communities or within groups of communities in accordance with the respective organic constitutional law.
Public services must be coordinated with the municipality when they take place within the respective communal territory, in accordance with the law.
The law will determine the form and the mode in which the ministries, public services and regional governments may transfer competencies to the municipalities, as well as the provisionary or definitive character of the transfer.
Article 121
In each municipality there will be a council composed of councilors elected through universal suffrage in accordance with the organic constitutional law of the municipalities. Councilors will hold office for four years and may be reelected. The same law will determine the number of councilors and the form in which the mayor will be selected.
The council will be charged with ensuring the effective participation of the local community, exercising normative, decision making, and management functions as well as other attributes assigned to them in the form determined by the respective organic constitutional law.
The organic law of municipalities will determine the norms regarding the organization and the functioning of the council and the matters on which the mayor will be obligatorily required to consult the council and those matters on the agreement of the council will be obligatory. In all cases, said agreement will be necessary for the approval of the community development plan, the municipal budget, and the respective projects of investment.
Article 122
The respective organic constitutional law will regulate the transitory administration of the communes that they create, the procedure for installing the new municipalities, the transfer of staff and services as well as the necessary safeguards to protect the use and disposition of the goods that are encountered within the territories of the new communes.
Additionally, the organic constitutional law of municipalities will establish the procedures that must be observed in the case of the removal or the fusion of one or more communes.
Article 123
The municipalities, in order to achieve their functions may create or remove employments and set remunerations, as well as establish the organizations or units that the respective organic constitutional law permits.
These abilities will be exercised within the limits and requirements that, upon the exclusive initiative of the President of the Republic, are determined by the organic constitutional law of the municipalities.
Article 124
The municipalities will enjoy autonomy in the administration of their finances. The Budgetary Law of the Nation may grant them resources to assist with their expenses, without prejudice to the payments that are directly conferred by the law or granted to them by the respective regional governments. An organic constitutional law will include a mechanism for the solidaristic redistribution of tax revenues amongst the municipalities of the country denominated as the common municipal fund. The norms of distribution of this fund will be determined by the law.
General Provisions.
Article 125
The law will establish forms of coordination for the administration of all or some of the municipalities with respect to the problems they share in common as well as coordination amongst the municipalities and the other public services.
Notwithstanding the provisions of the prior clause, the respective organic constitutional law will regulate the administration of the metropolitan areas and will establish the conditions and formalities that permit said quality to be bestowed upon specific territories.
Article 126
To be elected as a regional governor, a regional councilor, mayor, or a provincial councilor and to be designated as a regional presidential delegate or a provincial presidential delegate, a person must be a citizen with the right to vote, meet the other age requirements indicated by the law and reside within the region for at least the last two years prior to being designated or elected.
The positions of regional governor, regional councilor, mayor, provincial councilor, regional presidential delegate and provincial presidential delegate will be incompatible with each other.
The position of regional governor is incompatible will any other employment or commission payed with funds from the treasury, the municipalities, the autonomous fiscal entities, semi-fiscal, or the businesses of the state or those in which the treasury has capital ties as well as with any other function or commission of the same nature. Teaching positions as well as functions or commissions of an equal character in higher, secondary and special education within the limits established by the law are exempt.
Additionally, the position of regional governor is incompatible with the functions of directors or councilors, even when they are ad honorem, within the autonomous fiscal entities, semi-fiscal, or within the state businesses, or in those that the State participates within through capital.
Upon its proclamation by the Tribunal Calificador de Elecciones, an elected regional governor will cease operating in any other position, employment or commission.
No regional governor, from the moment of his or her proclamation by the Tribunal Calificador de Elecciones, may be named for an employment, function or commission of those referred to within the prior clauses. Without prejudice of the former, this provision will not apply in the case of external warfare; however, only the positions conferred in a state of war are compatible with the functions of regional governor.
No regional governor, regional presidential delegate, or provincial presidential delegate, from the day of their election or designation, depending on the case, may be accused or deprived of their liberty if the appellate court of the respective jurisdiction does not grant prior authorization declaring there to have been cause, except in the case of a flagrant crime. This resolution may be appealed before the Supreme Court.
In the case that a regional governor, a regional presidential delegate, or a provincial presidential delegate is arrested for a flagrant crime, he or she will be placed immediately at the disposition of the respective appellate court with the corresponding summary information. The tribunal will proceed according to the provisions of the prior clause.
From the moment that cause is declared through a firm resolution, the regional governor, regional presidential delegate, or the provincial presidential delegate will be immediately suspended from their position and subject to the competent judge.
Article 127
The respective organic constitutional laws will establish the causes of cessation in the positions of regional governor, mayor, regional councilor, and provincial councilor.
The mentioned authorities, having seriously infringed the norms of transparency or limits and controls on electoral spending, from the date on which the Tribunal Calificador de Elecciones declares it to have done so through a firm resolution, and upon request of the Directive Council of the Electoral Service, will cease their roles
Additionally, whoever loses the role of regional governor, mayor, regional councilor or provincial councilor according to the provisions of the prior clause, may not hold a public office or employment for the period of three years, nor may he or she be a candidate to popularly elected positions in the following two elections immediately following his or her cessation.
Article 128
The law will determine the form in which questions of competence that may arise amongst the national, regional, provincial, and communal authorities will be resolved.
Additionally, it will establish the mode of resolving the discrepancies produced by the regional governor and the regional council as well as those between the mayor and the council.
Special Provisions
Article 129
The Easter Islands and the Juan Fernandez Archipelago are special territories. The government and administration of these territories will govern according to the statutes established by the respective organic constitutional laws.
The rights to reside, remain and travel to or from any place within the Republic, guaranteed in number 10 of article 19, will be exercised in said territories in the form determined by the special laws that regulate their exercise.
