Plurinational Legislative Assembly

The Plurinational Legislative Assembly (Spanish: Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional; ALP), formerly known as the National Congress (Spanish: Congreso Nacional), is the legislative branch of the national government of Bolivia. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower chamber, the Chamber of Deputies, and an upper chamber, the Senate. They both meet in La Paz, the seat of government. The vice president of Bolivia acts ex officio as the president of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly. The legislature has a total 350 members: 36 senators, 130 deputies, 9 supranational representatives, and their corresponding substitutes. Each of the country's nine departments returns four senators elected by proportional representation (using the D'Hondt method). (From 1985 to 2009, the Senate had 27 seats: three seats per department: two from the party or formula that receives the most votes, with the third senator representing the second-placed party.) Senators are elected from party lists to serve five-year terms, and the minimum age to hold a Senate seat is 35 years. The Chamber of Deputies comprises 130 seats, elected using a seat linkage based mixed compensatory system (for mixed-member proportional representation): 70 deputies are elected to represent single-member electoral districts, 7 of which are Indigenous or Campesino seats elected by the usos y costumbres of minority groups, 60 are elected from party lists on a departmental basis. Deputies also serve five-year terms, and must be aged at least 25 on the day of the election. Party lists are required to alternate between men and women, and in the single-member districts, men are required to run with a female alternate, and vice versa. At least 50% of the deputies from single-member districts are required to be women. Both the Chamber of Senators, and the proportional part of the Chamber of Deputies is elected based on the vote for the presidential...