![Alvise Perez, wearing casual clothes](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/06/10/TELEMMGLPICT000381094814_17180287237930_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq7S7bFNyh2wf3fLASPa2Wl_EeTFgPXoiyxxl0vFVRUd4.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Spanish influencer with no manifesto wins 800,000 votes and EU seat
Alvise Pérez campaigned on a populist Trump-style anti-corruption platform and says he will not take his EU salary
![Alvise Perez, wearing casual clothes](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/06/10/TELEMMGLPICT000381094814_17180287237930_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq7S7bFNyh2wf3fLASPa2Wl_EeTFgPXoiyxxl0vFVRUd4.jpeg?imwidth=680)
A maverick influencer and former UK Liberal Democrat has pulled off a stunning result in Spain’s European election on Sunday by winning three seats in the EU Parliament without a manifesto.
Alvise Pérez, a 34-year-old online activist with hundreds of thousands of social media followers, leads a start-up political party called The Party is Over.
The party, which campaigned on a Donald Trump-like promise of ending corruption among the Spanish and European political elites, won 4.6 per cent of the national vote without a formal structure or published policies.
“The party is over,” Mr Pérez told jubilant supporters on Sunday night, explaining his view that Spain was run by “criminals, the corrupt and paedophile rapists”.
Mr Pérez has been involved in a series of lawsuits over his controversial exposes and conspiracy theories regarding mainstream politicians.
![Mr Perez holding a microphone and wearing a leather-look jacket on a stage](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/06/10/TELEMMGLPICT000381214581_17180288482580_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNJjoeBT78QIaYdkJdEY4CnGTJFJS74MYhNY6w3GNbO8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
The Seville native dedicated the party’s “victory” to Pepe Lomas, an 81-year-old Spaniard who was recently sentenced to six years in prison for shooting a thief who had entered his country home.
“He was defending his own property. All our politicians forget their own people, but we won’t do that,” Mr Pérez thundered.
Mr Pérez studied political science and became an activist for centrist parties such as Spain’s Ciudadanos, which lost all of its eight MEPs in Sunday’s vote.
Briefly a Lib Dem youth member
The election was won by the conservative People’s Party on 34 per cent, ahead of the socialist party of Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, which took 30 per cent.
Mr Pérez briefly lived in Leeds, where he was a member of the Liberal Democrats’ Young Liberals organisation.
In 2019, when Ciudadanos entered a decline, Mr Pérez struck out on his own, building a following which has reached 900,000 on Instagram and half a million on Telegram.
In 2023 Mr Pérez was convicted of defaming a Left-wing former mayor of Madrid by falsely claiming she had received special healthcare at her home during the Covid-19 pandemic.
![Mr Perez posing in a typical influencer-style shot with a woman whom he is hugging](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/06/10/TELEMMGLPICT000381216200_17180290502470_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqPSGJeyftEP9WNF5nKPELKYO2JF_w593QGlWaWVZxraI.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Among the policies he has mentioned in his online addresses are a crackdown on corruption, harsh penalties for paedophiles and the deportation of illegal migrants, whom he blames for rising rates of sexual violence and benefiting disproportionately from state subsidies.
Mr Pérez opposes the UN’s 2030 sustainable development agenda and supports the possibility of a referendum in Spain on the country’s EU membership.
Polling suggests The Party is Over’s voter base is dominated by young men, some of whom previously supported the far-Right Vox.
No salary
Mr Pérez said he would not be taking out his salary and expenses as an MEP, offering to raffle off what he said could amount to two million euros amongst his online followers.
Nothing is known about the other candidates on the party’s electoral list, two of whom will be joining Mr Pérez in the European Parliament.
He has said he does not wish to live in Brussels full time, calling Belgium “a failed state of Islamists, imported prostitution from people smugglers and disgusting food”.
Meanwhile, in Cyrpus a YouTuber famous for trying to hug 100 celebrities and bury himself in a coffin for a week was elected as an MEP.
Fidias Panayiotou, 24, who describes himself as a “professional mistake-maker”, gained the third-largest number of votes with 19.4 per cent.
He told state broadcaster CyBC: “The parties should take it as a warning that they must modernise and listen to the people.”