Influencers elected to the European Parliament | SVT News

Alves Pérez is the leader of the Spanish far-right party Se Acabó La Fiesta. The party received 4.6 percent of the votes and won three seats in the European Parliament after the elections.

The controversial YouTuber has been clear that the party wants to hold a referendum on the country's membership of the European Union. He said he would not receive a salary or any benefits as a representative of the European Union. Instead, he claims the money he earns will be siphoned off to the party's voters.

He also said he could not imagine living in Brussels full-time, and also described Belgium as a failed state, the Telegraph wrote.

The political atmosphere was shaken

Phidias Panayiotou, 24, is a Cypriot influencer with over a million followers on both YouTube and TikTok. He became famous above all after he hugged Elon Musk after a long period of treatment, which he documented and posted on social media.

Panayiotou won nearly a fifth of the votes in the EU elections and was then given the mandate. The election campaign, fueled solely by Vidya's popularity on social media, has shaken the political climate of the island nation. Many politicians see the social media profile entry as an affront to Cyprus' deep-rooted party culture, the AP reported.

Watch an SVT reporter introduce the new parliamentarians in the clip above.