functionaries of the local government, which he may appoint. Additionally, the mayor may give a public account of his gesture to the city council every year, usually in April; an extract of his account may be published to the community. If the mayor dies in office, resigns, or is unable to carry out his/her duties, a councilor may be elected by the city council to replace the former mayor. In the meantime, the municipal secretary may take office as acting mayor. This has happened several times in Pichilemu: following the resignation of René Maturana Maldonado in April 1992, municipal secretary Gustavo Parraguez Galarce took over his office since, at the time, there were no councilors; in November 1998, mayor Jorge Vargas González was convicted of illegally giving a driver's license, and the city council chose councilor Carlos Leyton Labarca until Vargas González resumed his duties in November 1999. Municipal elections, during which mayors are elected, take place every four years; they take place one year before presidential elections (since 2008) in the last Sunday of October. Candidates must comply a number of requisites in order to run for mayor of Pichilemu; those include: to have completed secondary education (Enseñanza Media), to be a citizen, literate, to have resided in the Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region for at least two years before the election, and to have their military status regularized. The mayor is usually sworn in on 6 December following the election. The next election for the mayor will be in 2016. Municipal elections originally elected three mayors, called primer, segundo, and tercer alcalde, and a number of regidores. For example, the results of the first elections in Pichilemu, for the term between 1894 and 1897, showed José María Caro Martínez, Pedro Nolasco de Mira, and Francisco Reyes elected as the first primer, segundo, and tercer alcalde of Pichilemu, respectively. The role of the primer alcalde equals that of the current mayor of Pichilemu. However, voting was not popular: only taxpayers and landowners could vote. According to the Decree #5655 of 4 December 1945, regidores were popularly elected, and they had the faculty to vote for the mayor that would rule for the local government three-year term. The 1973 Chilean coup d'état interrupted Washington Saldías Fuentealba's mayoral term, hence terminating possibilities of new elections. The military regime of Augusto Pinochet appointed seven mayors, who held the office in a period