MP Peter Vilfan, who recently left the deputy group of Positive Slovenia (PS) to join a grouping associated with outgoing PM Alenka Bratušek, announced his resignation on Sunday soon after he was reported hilting a pedestrian on Saturday evening while driving under the influence.
The 56-year-old Vilfan, who is a former member of the Slovenian nation basketball team and also a prominent sports commentator, wrote in a press release he had notified Parliament Speaker Janko Veber he was immediately resigning as MP.
Vilfan expressed deep regret about the incident, saying he had already paid a visit to the 84-year-old man, who was taken to the Ljubljana UKC hospital with a broken arm, on Saturday.
He wrote that he was found to have had 0.32 milligrams of alcohol per litre of breath at the time of the accident. The allowed level is 0.25 milligrams.
Vilfan, who hit the man while the latter was crossing the road on a green light, wrote that he had spent the afternoon in the company of friends, "obviously had one beer too many" and misjudged his capacity for driving safely.
Several media reported in the morning that a witness had confirmed for them Vilfan to have been the driver in an accident that happened in Ljubljana on Saturday at around 6 PM.
They also mentioned unofficial police sources as saying that Vilfan had failed the sobriety test conducted immediately after the accident.
It is believed that Vilfan will be replaced in parliament by Alenka Lampe, who announced for the STA she would agree to serving as MP. She plans to join the original PS deputy group not the splinter group. Lampe said she presently works in banking.
Vilfan, who is also on the slate of the PS for the upcoming EU elections, already made headlines in February, when he resigned from the Ljubljana City Council even though he had been considered a strong supporter of Mayor Zoran Janković on whose list he was elected.
Janković remains one of the best mayors Ljubljana has ever had but he is becoming increasingly "burdened", Vilfan said then, arguing council sessions were becoming increasingly destructive in the face of mounting pressure on the mayor. "I'm no longer interested in that...I don't want any part in these stories any more."
Source: The Slovenia Times
