Fidias Panayiotou, leader of Direct Democracy, explained in his own straightforward way over the weekend why his party backed Disy’s Annita Demetriou for House president, arguing that Demetriou would have won anyway.

At times using crude language, the 26-year-old TikToker gave an inside look at the horse-trading preceding the vote for the House president.

“Annita would have been House president anyway,” Panayiotou said in a short video clip he posted on social media.

Breaking down the numbers, he explained his party’s thinking behind backing a candidate for House president rather than abstaining.

With Direct Democracy’s four votes, plus the 17 from Disy, Demetriou would have received 21 votes in the first round, ensuring she went through to the second round.

The other option for Direct Democracy, Panayiotou said, was to support Diko’s Nicholas Papadopoulos. In this case, Papadopoulos would have received eight votes from Diko, another eight from Elam, and four from Direct Democracy, for a total of 20. However, Elam voted for their leader Christos Christou in the first round, as they had said they would.

In this scenario, Demetriou would have garnered only 17 votes from Disy, with Akel’s Stefanos Stefanou getting 15 from his own party plus four from Alma, for a total of 19.

That would have left Demetriou out of the second round of voting.

“Anything else, like supporting Akel, or abstaining, would’ve got Annita re-elected,” Panayiotou asserted.

Had Direct Democracy backed Stefanou, the latter would have got 23 votes – 15 from Akel, plus four from Alma, plus four from Direct Democracy.

However, in this case Diko would have supported Demetriou, giving her 25 votes.

Given the arithmetic, said Panayiotou, the choice for his party was clear – either abstain and see Demetriou elected House president, or endorse Demetriou and get something for it.

The social media influencer and MEP said that in the run-up to the election for House president, he had met both Demetriou and Papadopoulos.

Papadopoulos was even willing to make a video with Panayiotou announcing their collaboration for the vote.

In the end, he made the video with Demetriou, where the two committed to three policy proposals: raise the minimum pension to €1,088 so it aligns with minimum wage; have 10,000 affordable residential units built on state land; and provide up to €15,000 in child benefits to mothers.

“I met twice with Annita and sounded the alarm – if you don’t agree to this, Direct Democracy will not back you, and you’ll be left out of the second round,” Panayiotou said.

Initially Demetriou was not “very responsive”, he added.

“But one day before [the vote] when they [Disy] realised that Papadopoulos agreed to make a joint video and collaborate, Disy shat themselves, fearing they wouldn’t be able elect a House president, and that would be a huge blow to Disy, the biggest party.”

At that point, according to Panayiotou, Disy “agreed to everything”.

The social media influencer acknowledged it would be difficult for the three policies to become reality.

But he said his party now has a say in parliament with their four MPs, and together with Disy’s 17 MPs they could use their leverage when voting on the state budget.

Still, Panayiotou stressed, this transient partnership with Disy constitutes neither a “blank cheque” nor does it represent “a united front” for the 2028 presidential elections.

“We had the opportunity to have a small impact, we couldn’t have done something different, anything else would have left us with nothing.”

Meanwhile for his use of such a vulgar remark in referring to Disy, Panayiotou was rebuked by Diko spokesman Chrysis Pantelides.

“His vocabulary is unacceptable, to say the least,” posted Pantelides.

“He ought to respect not only those he is referring to, but also the public that is listening to him.”