“Independent MP Polakis — that’s the shortest joke. I have always been, and after the 26th I will continue to be, SYRIZA.”

This is what Pavlos Polakis said in Parliament when the chair of the plenary session, Vassilis VilIardos, referred to him as an independent MP during discussion of the topical question he had submitted to the Ministry of National Economy regarding the loans of New Democracy and PASOK.

Polakis’ reaction was seen as an indirect response to the letter — announced a few minutes earlier in the plenary session — from Socrates Famellos, chairman of SYRIZA, informing Parliament that Polakis had been removed from the party’s parliamentary group.