Greece after the resignation of Andreas Papandreou will be a very different place. His departure as prime minister could have left his government ill prepared to replace him without an outburst of the bitter political factionalism that was one of the hallmarks of his long career, but this possibility has been reduced by the despatch with which he is to be replaced in today's election. The party has to modernise its procedures and policies, going beyond the charismatic, authoritarian and increasingly eccentric style of leadership characteristic of his final period in "office since 1993. The range of candidates on offer at "least gives it a real opportunity to choose.
Papandreou's political stature was consolidated by his two terms in office during the 1980s, despite the corruption scandal that brought his second government down. But one has to go back two or three decades earlier to understand the intensity and loyalty he engendered among his followers - and the hatred among his political opponents. His father George was another heroic figure in the Greek political landscape, whose government was overthrown by right wing and royalist intrigue, culminating in the colonels' coup of 1967. Andreas Papandreou became a symbol of resistance to their rule. After they were overthrown in 1973 he returned and built up his party, which developed a mass following in rural and provincial Greece and then among the huge numbers of people who flocked from there to Athens in search of work and modernity.
His themes were the need to assert popular sovereignty against internal and external forces opposed to Greece's interests and to those of the people he represented. Given the country's traumatic history in this century, buffeted between competing great powers, suffering a brutal occupation by the Germans who were opposed by a very powerful resistance led by the left wing which was then put down with British and American help in a vicious civil war, it is not surprising that these themes should have been to the fore as the Greek left realigned in the 1970s.
The promise of this political mobilisation was not fulfilled in office. The Greek economy certainly benefitted from accession to EC markets and funds, but it was not transformed. Too much was channelled to reinforce the clientelism and patronage that have been the hallmarks of its political culture. Infrastructural and taxation reform and modernisation remain to be tackled forthrightly.
Papandreou concentrated more and more power in his own hands and that of a small group of associates more loyal than talented. His return to office in 1993 was a personal triumph following his acquittal on charges of corruption. But his divorce and remarriage, his prolonged illness and the increasingly bizarre rule through his second wife - who controlled his office - left his party in an increasingly difficult position to replace him. Their task has certainly been eased by the determination with which they combined to convince him to resign.