Politics
The state assembly Kärntner Landtag, ("Carinthian State Diet"), is a unicameral legislature, which also elects the state governor, whose ancient title is Landeshauptmann ("State Captain"). The other members of the cabinet are elected under a system of proportional representation based on the number of representatives of the political parties elected to the Landtag. The results of the 2009 elections were 44.9%/17 seats for the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), 28.8%/11 seats for the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), 16.8%/6 seats for the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and 5.1%/2 seats for the Greens. The plurality of the national-liberal BZÖ is unique among all Austrian states, while the results of the conservative-clerical ÖVP are remarkably weak. In April 2005 the BZÖ had emerged from the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and all but one FPÖ-MPs had turned to the new party.
One of the BZÖ founders was former Landeshauptmann and long-time FPÖ-leader Jörg Haider. Haider, a rather controversial figure, had been elected Carinthian governor in 1989 but was forced to resign two years later after remarks about a "proper employment policy" of the Third Reich during a debate in the state assembly. Nevertheless he was elected again Landeshauptmann in 1999 and in 2004, this time even with the consent of the representatives of both SPÖ and ÖVP. Haider was also reproached for repeated contempt for the Carinthian Slovenes minority rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Austria. He died in a car crash in 2008 and his party fellow Gerhard Dörfler came into office. In the last election the BZÖ, strongly referring to its deceased constitutor, managed to retain and even enlarge its share of votes, while the FPÖ failed to enter the Landtag. On 16 December 2009 the majority of the Carinthian BZÖ branch formed The Freedomites in Carinthia political party (FPK), seeking for co-operation with the FPÖ.
Read more about this topic: Carinthia (state)
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The politics of the exile are fever,
revenge, daydream,
theater of the aging convalescent.
You wait in the wings and rehearse.
You wait and wait.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“His talk was like a spring, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)