Macedonian general election

A presidential election in North Macedonia that gave voters another chance to express an opinion on their country's new name will go to a runoff after turnout in the first round of voting Sunday was too low for a candidate to win outright, election officials said.

People casting ballots in North Macedonia. Photo: EPA/EFE GEORGI LICOVSKI

Polls opened early Sunday in North Macedonia for a presidential election seen as a key test for the government following the country's changing its name to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece over the use of the term "Macedonia".

More than 3,400 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and will close at 7 p.m. (1700GMT).

Three candidates are running: the ruling SDSM-DUI coalition's Stevo Pendarovski, whose slogan is "Together forward"; opposition VMRO-DPMNE's Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova ("Justice for Macedonia, Fatherland is calling"); and Besim Blerim Reka, who represents a coalition of ethnic Albanian parties, whose slogan is, "Reka for the Republic."

President Gjorge Ivanov on Thursday denied having played any role in the violence in parliament on April 27, 2017 - or having planned to declare state of emergency and arrest opposition leaders.

While the government and the ruling majority has called for unity and forgiveness in Macedonia's politically-divided society, the opposition has called for an outright amnesty for the people who were involved in last year's storming of the parliament building.

At an extraordinary session of its central committee on Monday night, VMRO DPMNE purged several high-profile members, requested resignations from renegade MPs who supported the 'name' agreement with Greece at last week's parliamentary vote and threatened to oust other MPs if they support the agreement in the future.

The vice-president of Macedonia's main ruling Social Democratic Party, Petre Shilegov, on Wednesday confirmed that his parliamentary group has begun talks with its opposition rivals in parliament to persuade them to vote for the historic "name" agreement with Greece.

Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said he hoped parliament would adopt a formal decision supporting the referendum on the country's deal with Greece by Monday - which he added would then be staged with or without the support of the main opposition VMRO DPMNE party.

In his public address after Monday's parlays, Macedonian Prime Minister and main ruling Social Democrats leader Zoran Zaev accused the opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE chief Hristijan Mickovski of "lying" that he wants his country to join NATO and the EU, and of hiding his true intentions at the talks.