Macedonia vote on country’s name change closed its polling stations

SANAA, Oct. 1 (YPA) – The voting process in Macedonia, in the popular referendum on the agreement to change the country’s name reached by the government in Skopje with its Greek counterpart, last June, closed its polling stations on Sunday evening.

The voting process, which began at 07:00 local time, ended at 19:00 p.m., the Macedonian Government election Commission said in a statement.

The Committee pointed out that 34.09 per cent of the 1,806,336 registered voters in the country participated in the voting process, until 18:30 local time.

More than half of the voters are required to participate in the referendum to succeed, it required 903,169 voters.

The Macedonian authorities have not yet announced the final number of voters participating in the vote.

The popular referendum, described as “historical”, monitored by more than 12,000 observers, including 493 nationalities.

In the referendum, the Macedonian people asked whether they were ready for membership of the European Union by saying yes to the agreement between Macedonia and Greece.

In June last June, Greece and Macedonia signed an agreement to change the name of the former Yugoslav Republic to the “Northern Republic of Macedonia”; it ended a conflict between them for decades but provoked protests on both sides of the border.

E.M