While social media influencer Fidias Panayiotou’s Direct Democracy Cyprus achieved a respectable if unspectacular sixth place nationwide at Sunday’s parliamentary election, his party topped the polls in Meniko, his home village, which is located in the Nicosia district, west of the capital city.
Direct Democracy Cyprus’ overall vote share of 5.4 per cent was dwarfed by the 21.2 per cent it took in Meniko, which saw the party pip Disy to first place in the village by just five votes, while Elam, Akel, and Alma took third, fourth, and fifth respectively in the village.
Panayiotou was not the only party leader to receive a considerable boost in his home village, with Disy achieving a veritable landslide in party leader Annita Demetriou’s home village of Troulloi, in the Larnaca district.
Disy topped the nationwide polls with 27.1 per cent of the vote, but took a mammoth 48.3 per cent in Troulloi, and fell just four votes short of receiving three times the vote of Elam, which was the second-most popular party in the village, and took 16.3 per cent of the vote.
In Troulloi, Diko, Akel, and Direct Democracy Cyprus took third, fourth, and fifth place respectively.
Akel leader Stefanos Stefanou is a native of the Nicosia district village of Yerolakkos, which is located in the north. He votes in the village of Yeri, located southeast of the capital.
His party took first place in the village, with 29.2 per cent of the vote, while Disy was the village’s second-most popular party, with 26 per cent, and Elam, Alma, and Direct Democracy Cyprus took third, fourth, and fifth place respectively.
Elam scored a landslide of its own in party leader Christos Christou’s home village of Politiko, in the Nicosia district, taking 40.9 per cent of the village’s vote, and more than doubling second-place Disy’s total.
Third, fourth, and fifth place in Politiko were taken by Akel, Diko, and Alma.
The highest-ranking nationwide party of which the leader did not win at home was Diko, with the party only marginally outperforming its national total in the Nicosia suburb of Engomi, where party leader Nicholas Papadopoulos resides.
Instead, Disy was the suburb’s most popular party, taking 30.2 per cent of the vote, while Elam finished in second place with 11.5 per cent of the vote, and Akel finished in third place. Diko, which took 10 per cent of the vote nationwide, took 11 per cent in Engomi.
Likewise, Alma could only convert fifth place nationally into third place in Odysseas Michaelides’ home village of Kokkinotrimithia.
Instead, Disy was the village’s most popular party, taking 34 per cent of the vote, while Akel took the village’s second place with 18.8 per cent. Alma received 14.5 per cent of the village’s vote share.
Edek only saw a minimal boost in its own figures in the Limassol suburb of Kato Polemidia, where Nikos Anastasiou resides, receiving 3.8 per cent of the suburb’s vote, compared to 3.2 per cent nationwide, though the party finished in eighth place in the suburb – lower than its nationwide seventh place finish.
Anastasiou resigned as party leader on Sunday evening.
The Hunters’ Movement overperformed pre-election polling, though failed to win a seat in parliament, receiving 3.2 per cent of the nationwide vote, and the party received more than six times that proportion in party leader Nikolas Prodromou’s home village of Frenaros, in the Famagusta district.
The party was beaten to first place by Akel, which took 36.6 per cent of the village’s vote, but placed in second place with 20.7 of the villagers’ support.
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