Two more NDP MLAs announced Monday they won’t be helping the party face off against the United Conservative Party during the expected provincial election this spring.

Sandra Jansen, the NDP MLA for Calgary-North West, said in a statement she wants to help support Premier Rachel Notley’s 2019 re-election effort, “but after much consideration and discussion with my family, I’ve decided not to seek re-election.”

She added that the move “wasn’t an easy decision,” but it’s the right choice for her “after many years in public life.”

Strathcona-Sherwood Park MLA Estefania Cortes-Vargas, meanwhile, announced in a blog post Monday morning they will not seek re-election.

“Our government has a strong record, I am proud to have worked alongside Premier Rachel Notley, someone I consider to have been an incredible mentor to me. It was her encouragement that brought me into politics, then saw me become one of the first of three openly LGBTQ+ MLAs, first of three Latin-American Canadians and the youngest government whip in Alberta’s history,” reads the post from Cortes-Vargas.

“It is with a heavy heart that I have come to the tough decision that I will not be seeking re-election to pursue further professional development opportunities. Until the election is held, I plan to continue working hard for all of my constituents.”

Jansen was named infrastructure minister in October 2017, taking the portfolio from MLA Brian Mason. Mason, currently the province’s transportation minister, also announced last summer that he wouldn’t run again.

Several other high-profile MLAs, including associate health minister Brandy Payne and former Status of Women minister Stephanie McLean, have also decided not to run.

Jansen is a former broadcast journalist who entered politics working for the Progressive Conservative party. She was later elected as an MLA in 2012.

Jansen put her name forward as a candidate for the PC leadership in 2016, but dropped out, alleging harassment from supporters of current United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney.

Just days after pulling out of the leadership contest, Jansen crossed the floor and joined the NDP. In her first statement as a member of the Alberta NDP caucus, Jansen read messages she’d been sent that showed examples of “misogynistic, gendered abuse” that female politicians regularly receive.

Jansen’s official Twitter account was deactivated as of Monday morning.

Cortes-Vargas was elected in 2015 and was the first MLA to come out as non-binary, during a debate in the legislature about the inclusion of transgender rights in the provincial human-rights code.

Cortes-Vargas used their blog post to endorse NDP candidate Moira Vane as a replacement, which they said made it easier to choose not to run.

“It was something that I’d been considering,” Cortes-Vargas said in a phone interview Monday. “I had to talk to my close friends and family, and it’s a very personal decision. So when it lined up that I knew of someone that was such a great candidate, it kind of felt like passing the baton.”

Provincial legislation says voters have to head to the polls sometime between March 1 and May 31. But everyone involved will need time to prepare, which means the election will be called sometime in the coming months.

Mount Royal University political-science professor Lori Williams said both of Monday’s resignations came as a surprise.

“I can’t say I was expecting the resignation of either one of them. Both of them are fairly prominent in the NDP government and of course will be missed,” Williams said.

She speculates that Jansen may have felt she would have a hard time getting re-elected because she was voted in as a Progressive Conservative and noted some of the vicious verbal attacks Jansen faced while in office might have made her political career more challenging to endure.

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“The knives really come out for defectors in general, particularly female defectors,” Williams said.

She doesn’t see the resignations as a sign of bigger problems within the NDP, however, noting that a larger number of MLAs left in the lead-up to the 2015 election when the PC party was in power.

“It’s not a particularly high number. It’s not unusual. It’s exactly the kind of thing that starts to happen as we get closer to the election call,” she said.

Correction — January 21, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated the date when Sandra Jansen was named Alberta’s infrastructure minister.

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