National Territory - Politics

Politics

Each province has also its own government, with a provincial constitution, a set of provincial laws and justice system, a supreme court, a governor, an autonomous police force (independent of the Federal Police), and a congress: in eight provinces the parliament is constituted by an upper chamber (senate) and a lower chamber (deputies), while in the remaining fifteen provinces and in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires the congress has just one chamber.

On occasion the national government intervenes in a province under internal instability or after a corruption scandal, designating an intervenor to replace the local government until the situation is normalized: since the return of democracy to the country in 1983, four provinces were intervened, namely Catamarca, Corrientes (twice), Santiago del Estero (twice) and Tucumán.

During the 20th century, some provinces have had governments traditionally controlled by a single family (i.e. the Saadi family in Catamarca, or the Sapag family in Neuquén); in one case, it is still the situation as of 2009: the Province of San Luis was ruled almost without a break by the Rodríguez Saá family since December 1983.

The internal products of the provinces are merged into the national product when the national budget is decided. The share of the budget given to each province is decided based on each province's individual contribution to the national budget. Provinces are free to choose their own utilization of their assigned percentages of the national product.