Tea Košir leaves Logar's party, and his parliamentary group leader must leave the National Assembly

Tea Košir, who resigned as state secretary at the Ministry of Health at the end of September, is leaving Anže Logar's party, the Democrats. She intends to return to the National Assembly (DZ) as an independent MP, she announced on Facebook on Sunday, a few minutes before midnight.

Her return has a concrete price. Elena Zavadlav Ušaj, leader of the Democrats' parliamentary group, who entered the DZ in this term as a replacement MP, will have to give up her seat. The Democrats will thus lose one seat, and the coalition one vote.

The matter is not yet settled. The government has not yet formally relieved Tea Košir of the post of state secretary following her resignation, and the door to parliament will open for her only once it does.

She described her decision herself as follows:

"After careful consideration, I am leaving the Democrats party. I have decided to continue my parliamentary mandate as an independent MP." (translated)

She gave no specific reasons for leaving. She promises to respect coalition commitments, support good proposals and decide according to her conscience. She will pay particular attention to health, prevention, the family, the economy and people's quality of life.

Relations with Logar were evidently already strained. Delo cites her earlier Facebook post:

"If party president Anže Logar believes he does not want me to continue my work in the parliamentary group, I will accept that political position of his too." (translated)

According to RTV SLO, after deciding to return to parliament she also wrote that she is receiving threats. She did not explain who is threatening her.

"I heard warnings about everything that could supposedly happen. That someone could damage my company. That I should be careful who is driving next to me on the motorway." (translated)

The government appointed her state secretary on 4 June, and she was responsible for public health and primary healthcare. After Vesna Marinko, she is the second state secretary from the Ministry of Health to resign. She was elected to the National Assembly in the Radovljica 2 constituency, where she won 1,020 votes, or 8.83 percent.

This is not the first departure from Logar's party. Recently, founding member and executive board member Mirko Požar also left. He had helped write the party's economic programme. He explained that he did not enter politics for the sake of posts, but for "the idea of a unifying centrist politics", which in the party's current form he can no longer honestly represent.