Template talk:Presidents of Chile

Template modification

I agree that the template should include the provisory and temporary presidents, but the present template that you're trying to use contains too many mistakes to be acceptable, both in the programming (the flag doesn't show, some instructions are conflicting) and the list itself (some presidents are listed by their last name, some by their middle name, and some are just confused between father and son when both had the same position). You cannot use it UNTIL you correct the mistakes, because it's preferible a correct albeit incomplete one to an incorrect one. So, please, stop undoing the changes UNTIL you correct the errors. Mel Romero 06:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Elected vs Temporary

There has been some attempts to clean this list. The problem is that many of the Presidents that are eliminated from it are arbitrarily considered "non-elected", while many others that are left in are also "non-elected". The rule has to be clarified BEFORE we can decide who goes and who stays. Is useful to remember that elections in Chile during most of the 19th century and part of the 20th were a matter flexible at best. O'Higgins that appears in most lists (as Supreme Director) was never elected in an open election. Neither was Blanco Encalada (who everyone names as the first president, though he was selected just by the Senate). Ruiz-Tagle is almost always left out, though he was legally elected by Congress (the same way as Allende was more than a century later). If we check the US list, we will see that BOTH those who became presidents via elections or those who arrived to power via constitutional succession are included (if we apply that criteria, then the list should be even longer). So, what's needed is a clear criteria before going ahead with the cleaning. The names currently included were selected on the basis of constitutional succession according to the official list included in the MANUAL DEL SENADO CHILENO (1943), an official publication. Not included are only those who replaced presidents temporarily when designated according to the rule of seniority. Mel Romero 00:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

First FIGUEROA presidency

There has been posed the question whether the first Emiliano Figueroa Larraín presidency (1910) was a vice-presidency (temporary) or a real presidency. In the opinion of the majority of the historians, this presidency was real (as opposed to temporary, not as opposed to unreal). He acceded to power via constitutional precedency, after the deaths of President Pedro Montt Montt and President Elías Fernández Albano exactly as President Lyndon Johnson replaced President John F. Kennedy. In fact, in some texts this year is known as the "year of the 3 presidents". In Chilean constitutional law, a vice-president is the title of the person who "temporarily" replaces an acting President while he is either temporarily incapacitated or legally out of the country, both cases that do not apply when a President dies. The same case apply to several other presidencies that are not considered so far in this template. Mel Romero 05:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)