Influencer Fidias to stand in European Parliament elections

Influencer and YouTuber Fidias Panayiotou announced on Tuesday he is to stand in June’s European Parliament elections.

Panayiotou, 23, was born in the village of Meniko. He commonly goes by his first name and has 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube, having begun posting videos on the platform in 2019.

He became famous on the platform for a number of outlandish stunts, including embarking on a mission to hug Elon Musk. He garnered controversy late last year after attempting to travel across Japan while not paying for his transport and begging for cash.

He announced his candidacy in a video posted on TikTok. Speaking to the Cyprus Mail he confirmed that his current plan is to stand as an independent candidate, rather than as the member of a party.

“I am 23 years old and I have never voted in my life, and I said to myself one night that if I never vote and I never take an interest, the same nerds are always going to be in power, and I said ‘enough!’,” he said.

“My aim is not to get elected, my aim is for more people to get involved in politics, especially young people,” he said.

“To be honest, I don’t know a lot about politics or Europe, but I didn’t know anything about YouTube either when I started, and I slowly learnt about it, and now I have 2.5 million subscribers.

“So, in the next four or five months, we are going to go together on a journey of learning, so wear your seatbelts!”