Cypriot Youtuber MEP considers voting against von der Leyen following X poll

Cypriot YouTuber-turned-MEP Fidias Panayiotou may vote against Ursula von der Leyen’s re-appointment as European Commission after conducting an X poll.

After sweeping into the European Parliament via the European Elections in June, member of the European Parliament Fidias Panayiotou, has now taken to social media to guide his his political platform. He is one of 720 MEPs that will vote on von der Leyen’s position at the EU Commission.

“Whatever you say I will do,” he said when posting a poll on X on Saturday 13 July, asking whether he should vote against von der Leyen’s appointment. Around 85% of the 120,961 responders to his poll said that he should vote against her nomination, set for Thursday 18 July in the parliament plenary in Strasbourg. The poll closed at 3:54pm yesterday (15 July).

His poll in Greek had a similar result, with 81.6% of roughly 1,000 votes against von der Leyen.

Critics of Panayiotou’s brand of social media democracy, said that the Cypriots who he is supposed to represent, are not voting in his polls.

Many X users, including Cypriots, however, praised Panayiotou’s version of direct democracy. But at least one protested, “This should be illegal, Cyprus voted for your decision making, and now you’re involving all the population of the world  for a voting in the EU Parliament,” said Nikolas A, who describes himself as a Greek living in Cyprus.

The English-language poll, which garnered far more responses, was promoted by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who posted one of the videos describing the poll on Saturday, saying “Fidias is right. Super important decision.”

Anyone can vote on the X poll, and Musk’s repost attracted swathes of Tesla and crypto fans, and not just Cypriot citizens, based on the replies to his poll.

“I hope you’re ok with Americans voting! I just did, and I voted no,” said one user, called “JKash MAGA Queen.”

An equivalent question Panayiotou posted on his TikTok account, which was not reposted by Musk, appears to have gained less attention, with only around 4,700 likes.

It is unclear whether Panayiotou will act upon this poll given the criticism, but he has declared his intention to do so. His team did not respond to Euractiv’s request for comment at the time of publication.

The poll is in line with Panayiotou’s general appeal. He ran as a complete outsider, with no known political agenda. The YouTuber has been honest about not knowing anything about the European Parliament, and that he can’t stand the rule of the “nerds” in Brussels.

An earlier TikTok poll determined that he would join the non-inscrits rather than the Greens. He said that more than 10% of Cypriots voted, with a 76% majority for joining the non-inscrits rather than the Greens. It’s unclear how Panayiotou was able to determine the nationality of the poll voters.

By joining the non-inscrits, question will arise as to how much real influence he can have on amendments and reports in the Parliament.

Panayiotou’s rise to fame is closely associated with Musk. His most watched YouTube video is about his successful effort to get a hug from his hero, the Tesla and SpaceX founder Musk.

In a flurry of X posts on Friday 12 July evening, Musk, who is also the CTO and Chairman of X, said he will sue the EU Commission after it accused X of breaching the Digital Services Act.

This could be just the beginning of Panayiotou’s social media-enabled direct representation, “We see a promising future of a more direct democracy, maybe with more independent people leading the way,” he said in a 37-minute YouTube video on his political campaign.

[Edited by Rajnish Singh]

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