A 24-year-old YouTuber from Cyprus, without a party or agenda, could secure a seat in the European Parliament. He typically posts videos on social media featuring bizarre feats.
Fidias Panayiotou posts videos where he undertakes challenges at the edge of possibility, such as living rent-free in an airport for 10 days, hugging Elon Musk, or surviving 5 days without sleep, as reported by Il Messaggero, cited by Mediafax.
He could obtain a seat in the European Parliament, even though by his own statements, he has never been interested in politics, or rather, was not interested until his candidacy for the European elections.
Cyprus has six seats available in the European Parliament, and one of them could be his.
According to estimates by the European Parliament, the young man obtained 19.36% of the votes and would receive one of the two seats for independents.
"I achieved a miracle," said Panayiotou on Alpha TV after the polls were released.
The YouTuber was only surpassed by the two major political forces in Cyprus, the conservative party DISY and the communist formation Akel, which obtained 24.78% and 21.49% of the votes, respectively.
Fidias has over 2.6 million followers on his YouTube channel (more than the population of Cyprus) and is very active on Instagram and TikTok. His career on social media started in 2019 with the publication of videos where he undertakes "challenges," bizarre feats, at the edge of possibility.
He captured internet users' attention after announcing that he would do everything possible to hug billionaire Elon Musk, which he successfully achieved.
The young man sparked controversy last year when he traveled through India and Japan begging for money.
In January, when he announced his candidacy, he stated: "I have never voted in my life: one evening I told myself that if I never vote and don't care, the same nerds will always be in power, so I said 'enough!'"
In April, at the official presentation of his candidacy, the YouTuber declared: "I am running as an independent because I don't want to fit into schemes and to show that I have no party interests."
Fidias explained that he ran not to win but to motivate young people to take an interest in politics.
According to estimates by the European Parliament based on national data from Cyprus, the far-right party National Popular Front (Elam) seems to have secured a seat. This concerns two seats for independents, one of which would go to Elam and the other to the independent YouTuber Fidias.