VMRO DPMNE

Pendarovski's slogan, "Forward Together", and Siljanovska's slogan, "Justice for Macedonia - the Fatherland Calls", reflect these two opposed narratives.

But both blocs share one common a concern - that not enough undecided voters will support either contestant.

Their absence on April 21 could put the required electoral threshold for the election, of 40 per cent, in jeopardy.

It also affirmed the Macedonian identity with a two-thirds majority, Beta is reporting.

In the 120-seat parliament, 81 MPs voted for accepting the four amendments whereby Macedonia meets its obligations in a deal with Greece to resolve the name dispute. MPs from the opposition VMRO DPMNE did not attend the session.

Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev announced he will forge ahead with his bid to pass the 'name' agreement with Greece through parliament, despite his "yes" campaign failing to draw enough voters to pass the turnout threshold required to make Sunday's historic referendum legally valid.

Despite a boycott by VMRO DPMNE, Macedonia's right-wing main opposition party, 61 of the parliament's 120 MPs voted for the agreement. The landmark accord was signed in August 2017 and aims to end the often fraught bilateral relationship between Skopje and Sofia and bring the two countries closer through an EU-oriented partnership.

Macedonia's main opposition VMRO DPMNE party insists that its MPs' caucus in parliament stands united behind the new party chief, Hristijan Mickoski, elected in December - despite growing evidence to the contrary.

"The caucus is strong and united. All MPs are actively participating in the decision-making process within the organs of the party," VMRO DPMNE told BIRN on Thursday.

Several hundred people led by Gruevski and other high-ranking VMRO DPMNE party members protested on Tuesday amid a heavy police presence in front of the Skopje Criminal Court, where the suspects who were arrested in the morning were taken before a judge.

Macedonia's main ruling party, the Social Democrats, and the ethnic Albanian BESA party have exchanged a series of mutual accusations and warnings.

The dispute erupted after the Social Democrats, the SDSM, decided to openly support BESA's bitter Albanian rivals in the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, in the October 15 local elections.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovenia's former PM Janez Jansa have given a hearty boost to Macedonia's ousted leader Nikola Gruevski in the run-up to Macedonia's local elections.

In the resort town of Ohrid, the three of them held a joint press conference accompanied by some of Gruevski's VMRO DPMNE mayoral candidates.

Many of the new government's proposed bills, regulations and appointments may fall victim to the strategy adopted by the former ruling VMRO DPMNE, whose MPs have formed ten separate parliamentary caucuses which gave them more opportunities to stall parliament's work.

Experts say the possible resignation of ethnic Albanian ministers from Macedonia's provisional government would increase the "pressure" for the formation of a new government but would not necessarily resolve the current crisis.