Prior to amendments made in 2017, the Carinthian constitution mandated that cabinet positions in the state government (state councillors, ) be allocated between parties proportionally in accordance with the share of votes won by each; this is known as
Proporz. As such, the government was a perpetual coalition of all parties that qualified for at least one state councillor. In 2005, then-Governor and former federal leader of the
Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) Jörg Haider split from the party due to internal disputes, and founded the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ). The Freedom Party in Carinthia, then the FPÖ's state branch and led by Haider, changed its allegiance and became the Carinthian branch of the BZÖ. The large majority of its leadership and structure followed, with only a small minority defecting to the FPÖ's new Carinthian branch. Shortly after the
2008 federal election, Haider was killed in a car accident. He was succeeded by Gerhard Dörfler, who became the new Governor of Carinthia and leader of the FPK. In the
2009 Carinthian state election, Dörfler led the party to a strong victory under the name "Freedom Party in Carinthia – BZÖ List Jörg Haider". The FPÖ's new state branch won 3.8%, failing to enter the Landtag. In December 2009, the FPK split from the BZÖ in protest of new federal leader
Josef Bucher's policies, becoming an independent party operating in Carinthia. The party announced it would support the FPÖ on a national level, while the FPÖ's state branch would be dissolved. The FPÖ and FPK compared their new relationship to that of the
CDU/CSU in Germany. The BZÖ subsequently founded a new Carinthian branch to compete with the FPK. Between 2009 and 2013, Dörfler's government suffered a string of scandals involving current and former government officials, including the late Haider. In January 2010, Vice Governor Uwe Scheuch was exposed for offering Austrian citizenship to a Russian investor in exchange for investments in Carinthia and donations to the then-BZÖ. Scheuch resigned from all political positions in mid-2012 and was found guilty in December. In July 2012, a government tax consultant was caught up in a corruption scandal involving the FPK and BZÖ, which led to an early election being scheduled for March 2013. ==Electoral system==