Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has urged parliament to "confirm the will of the majority" after "more than 90%" of referendum voters agreed to change the country's name.
Marred by low turnout, yesterday's non-binding referendum on renaming Macedonia needs to be ratified in parliament by a two-thirds majority.
Mr Zaev and his coalition partners from the ethnic Albanian minority will need at least a dozen MPs from the opposition to back the move to change the country's name to "North Macedonia".
"More than 90% of the total votes are 'Yes', so now it is parliament's turn to confirm the will of the majority," Mr Zaev told AFP.
After ballots were counted from 80% of polling stations, 91.2 of votes were in favour of the name change, with just 5.6% opposed, according to the official preliminary results of the electoral commission.
But right-wing opposition VMRO-DPMNE party said the low turnout made the referendum "deeply unsuccessful".
"Macedonia showed that the deal did not pass. This is the will of the people and VMRO-DPMNE will follow it," party leader Hristijan Mickoski told reporters.
However, the party that ruled Macedonia for a decade until 2017 was split during the referendum campaign.
Mr Mickoski did not vote, but several MPs took part in the polls, including the party's vice-president Mitko Janchev.
Mr Zaev said that if he failed to obtain the required majority in the parliament to back the name deal, he would call early elections, two years after the previous ones.
