After the referendum, the issue of changing Macedonia's name goes to Parliament

SKOPJE, (Patria) - At 7 PM, 3,480 polling stations in Macedonia, where citizens voted in a referendum today, were closed. 

According to the first preliminary results, after counting 55 percent of the ballots, 90.83 percent of citizens voted "for", and 6.17 percent voted "against". Such a result was somewhat expected, given that the referendum was mainly attended by supporters of Prime Minister Zaev, while those who support President Ivanov, who publicly called for a boycott, boycotted the referendum and did not participate.

The State Election Commission of Macedonia (SEC) announced that the turnout by 6:30 PM was 34.09 percent, based on over 80 processed reports from election commissions, and by 5 PM, only 28.3 percent of eligible voters had participated in the referendum. 

The head of the SEC, Oliver Derkoski, emphasized that the voting process was conducted in a regular and undisturbed manner, except for a few breaks due to technical problems and a few minor incidents that did not, however, disrupt the voting process.

The referendum in Macedonia is part of the Agreement signed between the Prime Ministers of Macedonia and Greece, Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras, on resolving the long-standing dispute over the country's name, which foresees changing the country's name to the Republic of North Macedonia. 

Macedonian citizens were asked at the referendum: "Are you in favor of EU and NATO membership by accepting the Agreement between Macedonia and Greece?".

1,806,836 citizens had the right to vote. For the referendum to be valid, the voter turnout had to be at least 50 percent plus one.

Although the referendum is only consultative and not legally binding, the Macedonian government has stated that it will consider the results binding.

Whatever the referendum results, the final decision must be made by the parliament, i.e., the Sobranie of the Republic of Macedonia, where a two-thirds majority of deputies is required for constitutional changes.

For the final change of the country's name, after all procedures in Macedonia are completed, ratification by the Greek parliament is also required.