Government of Providencia y San Andres

Official Name: Reino Unido de Providencia y San Andrés

Founded: October 23, 1821

Type of Government: Constitutional Monarchy

Constitution: Written constitution authorized by King Leopold II in 1912

Head of State: El Rey Carlos III

Head of Government: Primer Ministro Jamie Salvador Puche Ceren of the Christian Democratic Party (Partido Democrata Cristiano – PDC)

The Executive: Head of State and Head of Government

Under the Providencian constitution, the King (el Rey) is the Head of State and nominally appoints the Prime Minister (Primer Ministro), who must have the support of a majority in the lower house of Parliament. The King must also give his assent to legislation, though there is no real mechanism for him to withhold his assent.

The Prime Minister is the Head of Government and leads the Cabinet. The Cabinet consists of 13 independent ministries and 7 subordinate ministries. Most of the subordinate ministries fall under the Ministry of Government (Ministro de Gobernación), which is responsible for security, administration and social integration, and the Ministry of the Interior (Ministro de Hacienda), which is responsible for the economy, environment and development.

The Executive: The Cabinet

The Legislature: Parliament

Providencia y San Andres has a bicameral parliament. The lower house is known as the National Assembly (Asamblea Nacional) and the upper house is the Court of Nobles (Corte General). The Assembly is elected to five-year terms and consists of 135 members. One third of the Court consists of nobles, one third is appointed for life by the King on the advice of the Government, and one third is elected to a six-year term.

The current government is part of a majority coalition in the National Assembly. The Prime Minister’s party, the Christian Democratic Party (Partido Democrata Cristiano – PDC), controls 41 seats and its coalition partner, the National Action Party (Partido Accion Nacional - PAN), controls 32 seats. The left opposition consists of the Labor Party (Partido Laboral – PL) with 34 seats and the Green Party (Partido Verde – PV) with 12 seats. The recently formed Movement for Democracy (Movimiento por la Democracia – MPD) holds 16 seats.

The PDC and PAN are both center-right parties, though the PAN tends to be somewhat more liberal in its social policies than the PDC, while the PDC tends to favor more social welfare expenditures than the PAN. The PL, though founded as a traditional left-labor party, is now more of an urban progressive party. The PV agitates mostly for preserving Providencia’s natural environment while embracing some progressive causes. The MPD styles itself a moderate, technocratic party, focused on an anti-corruption and clean government agenda.

The Courts

The Supreme Court (La Corte Suprema) is appointed to eight-year terms by the King on the advice of the Government. The court consists of two parts, the Supreme Court of Justice (La Corte Suprema de Justicia), which is the court of final appeal, and the Constitutional Court (La Corte Constitucional), which decides constitutional questions.

Lower courts consist of both civil and criminal courts at the district and appellate level.