Once upon a time, there was a party

The famous phrase uttered by the late premier and PASOK leader Andreas Papandreou in 1986 when he expelled then-minister Gerasimos Arsenis from the party after a critical speech the latter gave in Karditsa, has gone down in history: "With his actions, Mr Arsenis has removed himself from the party."

This same sentence was also used by SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis to announce that he is expelling veteran lawmaker Stefanos Tzoumakas. As Karl Marx would say, history repeats itself, "first as tragedy, second as farce."

Andreas Papandreou had the power to expel PASOK officials. Can Stefanos Kasselakis do the same in SYRIZA?

The president of SYRIZA's disciplinary council, Antonis Kotsakas, made it clear recently that the ethics committee (to which Tzoumakas was referred by Kasselakis, after imitating Papandreou) answers only to the party congress, as it is the...