The Provincial Municipality of Cusco is the local governing body of the Cusco Province and the Cusco district. Its headquarters are located in the city of

Cusco Cusco or Cuzco (; or , ) is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Sacred Valley of the Andes mountain range and the Huatanay river. It is the capital of the eponymous Cusco Province, province and Cusco Region, department. The city was the cap ...

, which serves as the capital of the province.

History

During the Spanish foundation of

Francisco Pizarro Francisco Pizarro, Marquess of the Atabillos (; ; – 26 June 1541) was a Spanish ''conquistador'', best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Born in Trujillo, Cáceres, Trujillo, Spain, to a poor fam ...

established the first council and appointed Beltrán de Castro and Captain Pedro de Candia as mayors, handing each of them their respective ''varas'' of justice, along with the aldermen. Since then, the ''Cabildo del Cusco'' became the local governing body of the city and the surrounding area. After the end of the colonial period, the new republic decided that its local organization would depend on the structure established during the viceroyalty, using intendancies to form the new departments of Peru. Thus, the Intendancy of Cuzco led to the current Department of Cusco, and the old districts gave rise to the contemporary

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

. In the case of Cusco, on June 21, 1825,

Simón Bolívar Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios (24July 178317December 1830) was a Venezuelan statesman and military officer who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bol ...

issued a decree creating the Cusco Province and establishing a municipality in it, which, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of 1823, would be elected by electoral colleges. However, the following year, the For-Life Constitution imposed by the Venezuelan dictator abolished councils and municipalities, which were reintroduced by the Constitution of 1828. Municipalities would be suppressed again in the constitution of 1839 and restored in the one of 1856. The Constitution of 1920 regulated for the first time the election of municipal authorities, although it was only in 1963, under the Constitution of 1933, that the first popular election for municipal authorities took place in Peru. Until then, the position was directly appointed by the government and had much less importance than the figure of the Prefect of Cusco, who represented the

executive power The executive branch is the part of government which executes or enforces the law. Function The scope of executive power varies greatly depending on the political context in which it emerges, and it can change over time in a given country. In ...

in the department. An example of this was the appointment of the American citizen Albert Giesecke as mayor of Cusco in the 1920s. The first elected mayor was Alfredo Díaz Quintanilla, who won the municipal elections of 1963 as a candidate of the Alliance Acción Popular-Democracia Cristiana. The elections were suspended with the arrival of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces and would not resume until 1980.

Organization

The government organs of the Provincial Municipality of Cusco are: * the Council (''El Concejo Municipal''); * the Mayor of Cusco (''La Alcaldía'');

Function and powers

According to Article 2 its ''Regulation of Organization and Functions'', the Provincial Municipality of Cusco exerts jurisdiction, in matters within its competence, on the districts of Cusco, Ccorca, Poroy, Santiago, San Sebastián, San Jerónimo, Saylla and Wanchaq.

References

Cusco province {{Peru-gov-stub