I talk about Argentina's government system, how the executive and legislative works and how each Province also has its own autonomous government and constitution. And how elections work.

1. Charlie Cornwell July 8,
2019
The Government of – Argentina
theweeklyrambler.com/the-government-of-argentina/
Argentina is a large country that takes up most of the Southern half of South America,
sharing a long border with Chile. Argentina also borders Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil and
Uruguay, it also has a long coastline with the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Its capital city is
Buenos Aires, a coastal city near to Uruguay’s border, iconic parts of the city include the
Plaza de Mayo, where the presidential palace can also be found; a large 1908 opera house
called the Teatro Colón and the MALBA museum. The country’s population is just over 44
million as of 2017. The currency used is the Argentine Peso, which exchanges currently to 1
Peso = 0.019 Pound Sterling or 1 Peso = 0.024 US Dollars. The official language is Spanish.
Featured photo: Map from Google Maps. Flag in the public domain. Edited flag and map
together.
It is also of note that my country (the United Kingdom) went to war with Argentina over the
disputed Falkland’s Islands off its coast. Argentina names the islands Islas Malvinas.
Government Type
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2. Argentina Coat of Arms. Photo/work within public domain.
Argentina is a federal presidential representative democratic republic. A federation means
that the country has a number of provinces or states with their own governments and
constitutions but are all in a union together under one federal government and national
constitution. The likely most well-known and obvious federation is the United States of
America.
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3. Argentina has 23 self-governing provinces, with each represented and lead by an elected
Governor. Buenos Aires, the capital city, is autonomous itself and not a part of any of the
self-governing provinces and is where Federal Government is stationed. The Federal
Government is led by a democratically elected President.
The Federal Government has an elected congress and each of the 23 self-governing
provinces have their own elected legislative assemblies for local laws and governance.
Federal law often supersedes local law if a situation of a province vs federal government
arises.
The Executive Government
The Casa Rosada, executive office of the Argentine president. Photo by Grashoofd from
Wikimedia. License.
The Executive Government includes the Federal Government and President and also the
Governor of each Province and their administrations also being local executive
governments. The President is both Chief of State and Head of Government and so he
represents the country as a whole internationally and controls many functions of
government and his administration as well as having a number of special executive powers,
again it is similar for the Governors of each province, except the Governor is representative
to the federal government rather than internationally like the President is.
The President serves for 4 years and one person can serve a max of two terms (8 years) as
President before they must step aside.
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4. The President’s powers include signing bills into federal law that have been passed by the
federal congress. The President appoints Judges to the Country’s Supreme Court with a
confirmatory vote of two-thirds of the upper federal house, the president also appoints
Federal Judges from candidate lists provided by the Council of the Magistracy and also
getting consent on his appointments from the upper federal house. The President is able to
grant pardons or commute punishments in relation to federal law, excluding impeachments
by the lower federal house. Appoints and removes members of his administration,
sometimes with consent of the upper federal house. The President is Commander-in-Chief
of the country’s armed forces and with consent from congress, can declare war.
The Legislative Government
The Argentina National Congress – Photo by Miguel Cesar (Mikecesar) from Wikimedia.
License.
The Federal Legislative Government is a Bi-Cameral Parliament made up of the lower house,
called the Chamber of Deputies and the upper house, called the Senate. Both houses are
elected by the people of the nation in legislative elections. Deputies are elected for 4-year
terms in conjunction with presidential elections while Senators serve 6-year terms, with
groups of Senators elected in alternating elections, meaning that the Senate normally does
not have all seats up at once in an election like the lower house does.
The Chamber of Deputies currently has 257 seats, which can change based on the
population changes of the multi-seat constituencies. The Senate has a fixed number of
seats, 72, three Senators elected from each province and another three elected from the
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5. capital city, Buenos Aires, representing their provinces and the city in Federal Government.
The Vice-President presides over the Senate while a member, usually of the largest party in
the Chamber of Deputies, is chosen as president of the chamber of deputies to preside over
them.
Both of the houses main jobs are to introduce bills, debate them and then either vote them
down or pass them through each other, with them ultimately signed into Federal Law by the
President. But both houses also can have differing jobs and rules of what they can and
cannot do compared to the other house.
For example, the Chamber of Deputies is specifically charged with levying taxes and also has
the ability to accuse the President, any of his administration officials or Supreme Court
Judges of crimes and impeach them.
The Legislative Assemblies of each province works similarly, with them elected in local
legislative elections and debating on and passing local bills through them, which may
ultimately be signed into local law by the said Governor of the province.
An extraordinary meet of both houses may be called on rare occasions, such as the
changing or amendment of the country’s constitution, which requires a two-third vote in
favor.
The Electoral System
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6. Provinces of Argentina. Photo by Bleff from Wikimedia. License.
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7. The President and Vice-President are elected separate from the legislative government
every 4-years. Presidential Elections and Legislative Elections. The President and Vice-
President (elected together on one ballot) are elected by direct-popular vote with a
2 round run-off if no candidate gets more than 40-45% of the vote, determined by two
formulas.
The entirety of the House of Deputies is elected every 4-years from multi-seat
constituencies in a proportional representation system using the D’Hondt method. The
President’s party does not have to have a majority in Congress for him to remain in power.
Senator’s serve 6-year terms but not always in conjunction with one another, two of the
three senate seats of a province or the city of Buenos Aires are given to the party with the
largest vote share within that province or the city of Buenos Aires, while the 3 seat is given
to the party with the 2 largest vote share.
Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoyed it and/or learned something. Next up will
be Armenia’s government system.
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