Latin America consists of 27 Sovereign States and several territories and dependencies that stretches from the northern border of Mexico to the southern tip of South America including the Caribbean. Competitive elections were introduced in Latin America in different phases. After 1928, elections were held in Argentina, Chile, Columbia and Uruguay but Chile reverted to authoritarianism.
Some countries held elections in the period roughly from 1943 to 1962, though again many countries did not retain democratic governments. From the beginning of the mid-1970s, competitive elections were introduced gradually throughout most of the Latin America. Most of the countries in Latin America adopted presidential type of governments with bi-cameral legislature and Governors and Municipalities at the provincial levels. The term of the Parliaments also differs from one country to another. Some members/deputies are elected for four year while others are elected for 5 years.
Some countries like Costa Rica, Ecuador, El-Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, Peru adopted uni-cameral legislatures for 3years, 4years, 5 years and 6 years simultaneously. The electoral laws governing legislative election project an extremely complex scenario under the common denominator of proportional representation which does not tend to work in practice. Legislative elections in a large number of countries are carried out the lists of candidates that are closed and blocked to ensure controlled by political parties.
