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Chile has a presidential system of government. The Executive Power exercised by the President of the Republic is elected by direct popular vote, and the President is supported by 21 cabinet ministers. Eduardo Frei Tagle was elected President by an absolute majority (58 percent) on December 11, 1993.

The next presidential elections are slated for December 1999. Frei won with the support of a solid center-left coalition, the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Coalition of Parties for Democracy), forged during the final years of military rule. This same coalition brought President Frei's predecessor, Patricio Aylwin, to office in 1989. Aylwin served from 1990 through 1994. His was the first civilian government to follow General Augusto Pinochet's 17-year military regime.

The lower Chamber of Deputies is decidedly in control of the coalition of parties that helped restore democracy to Chile. But despite the solid electoral majority given both to the Aylwin and Frei governments, opposition forces controlled the Senate through 1997 by virtue of eight "designated senators" appointed by Pinochet prior to handing control back to civilians. New "designated senators," appointed in part by Frei in 1998, have altered the Senate's balance to make it almost evenly divided between Concertacion forces and opposition forces. In August, 1998, for example, the Senate had two tie votes in a row regarding the elimination of September 11 (the anniversary of the 1973 military coup) as a national holiday. The Senate ultimately voted elimination of the holiday after Senator-for-Life Pinochet proposed an alternative holiday celebration set for September 4.

Pinochet also left an his mark on the composition of Chile's 17-member Supreme Court. Prior to leaving office in 1990, Pinochet induced many older sitting judges to retire by offering them an early retirement bonus of US$50,000. This permitted Pinochet to name younger judges sympathetic to his values and so guarantee the legitimacy of his 1980 Constitution and the 1978 Amnesty Law, which absolved military forces of legal reprisals for massive human rights violations committed throughout Pinochet's dictatorship. Still, the retirement of many of the Pinochet-era judges in 1997 and 1998 has finally given the Supreme Court a new balance of power, resulting in the re-opening of many human rights cases that have been stalled for years in a here-to-fore unresponsive judicial system.

Chile's Congress is located in the port city of Valparaíso. It consists of 47 Senate members (including Senator-for-life Pinochet) and 120 members of the Chamber of Deputies. Most contemporary political ideologies are present in Chile. The four parties in the governing Concertación coalition are: the Christian Democratic Party, the Party for Democracy, the Socialist Party, and the Radical-Social Democratic Party. The opposition is composed of National Renovation party, the Independent Democratic Union party and the Center-Center Progressive Union. While the Communist Party has no representation in Congress, it does have members elected to some municipal governments and counts with enough votes to influence the results of various elections.

Chile's institutional structure also includes several autonomous organisms: the Constitutional Tribunal, the National Security Council, the Comptroller General and the Central Bank. The independent Central Bank is responsible for the stability of Chile's currency and for ensuring the proper operations of domestic and foreign payments. Chile's armed forces and uniformed police fulfill their professional duties under the direction of civilian authorities through the Ministry of Defense. Each of the four branches is led by a Commander-in-Chief. Chile is divided into 12 different regions for administrative purposes, plus the Metropolitan Region of Santiago. The highest ranking official in each region is the Intendente, a presidential appointee.