Macedonia PM vows to move on with name change despite referendum failure

Macedonia's prime minister pledged on Sunday to press on with a vote in parliament to change the country's name, although his coalition acknowledged a referendum appeared to have failed to secure the 50 percent turnout needed to make it legally valid.

The proposed name change is part of an agreement reached in June by pro-Western Prime Minister Zoran Zaev with Macedonia's neighbour Greece to resolve a decades-old dispute that had prevented Macedonia from joining NATO or the EU.

TRT World's Iolo ap Dafydd reports from Skopje, Macedonia.

With the official turnout tally stuck at 34 percent half an hour before polls closed, a ruling coalition official acknowledged that it seemed unlikely that the 50 percent threshold would be reached. The opposition said the low turnout proved that Macedonians had rejected the name change.

Election officials still had not updated the official turnout figure hours after polls shut. Partial results showed that the people who did vote overwhelmingly backed the name change -- more than 90 percent voted yes with 63 percent of polling stations reporting.

But that had never been in doubt, since opponents of the change had urged followers not to vote, rather than vote no.

"It is clear that the agreement with Greece has not received the green light from the people," main nationalist opposition VMRO-DPMNE party leader Hristiajn Mickoski told journalists.

In an address, Zaev made no mention of the turnout but said most people who had voted had backed the change and their votes must be respected. He pledged to hold a vote in parliament on the name change, and said he would call an early election if lawmakers failed to give it the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution.

"I am determined to take Macedonia into the European Union and NATO," Zaev said.

Blow

While the referendum is officially not binding, a failure to reach the turnout threshold would be a blow to Zaev.

The Greek foreign ministry said it respected the will of the people of the country, which it refers to by the provisional name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The referendum passed judgment on the agreement with Greece reached in June, under which Macedonia would change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia. Greece, which has a province called Macedonia, maintains that its northern neighbour's name represents a claim on its territory.

Because of the dispute, Greece has vetoed Macedonia's entrance into NATO and the EU. While a majority of Macedonians want to join NATO and the EU, nationalist opponents of the name change argued that it undermines the ethnic identity of Macedonia's Slavic majority population.

The question on the referendum ballot read: "Are you for NATO and EU membership with acceptance of the agreement with Greece".

"It is clear now that it (turnout) is unlikely to reach the threshold of 50 pct," the ruling party official told Reuters.

Greek government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told Greek radio on Sunday: "We are looking forward to a positive result for the validation process to continue and to move to the next stage, the constitutional revision."

Supporters of the name change argue that it is a price worth paying to pursue admission into bodies such as the EU and NATO.

"I came today to vote for the future of the country, for young people in Macedonia so they can be live freely under the umbrella of the European Union because it means safer lives for all of us," said Olivera Georgijevska, 79, in Skopje.

But opponents said the name change represented national humiliation.

"We are for NATO and EU, but we want to join with our heads up, not through the service door," said Vladimir Kavadarkov, who backed the referendum boycott. "We are a poor country, but we do have dignity."