North Macedonia name change gets 91pc support

MACEDONIA’S prime minister has insisted he will press on with changing his country’s name to North Macedonia despite a referendum on the issue attracting just a third of voters.

Zoran Zaev said that, despite the low turnout on Sunday, the very high proportion of yes votes – 91 per cent – gave him the mandate to proceed. Under an accord struck with Greece in June, Athens will no longer object to the Balkan country joining the EU and Nato as long as it adds the geographical qualifier “North” to its name, to distinguish it from Greece’s region of the same name just across the border.

The deal would orientate Macedonia towards the West and thwart Russian influence in the region.

Opponents of the agreement, including Macedonia’s president, pushed for a boycott of the referendum, saying the name change was a humiliation and an attack on national sovereignty.

They now argue that the low turnout makes the result void. But supporters insisted the result had legitimacy and said that if opponents had really wanted to block the deal then they should have turned up at the polls and voted no, rather than abstaining.