IT HAD been billed as the most important vote in the region’s recent history, a referendum in favour of settling a long-standing dispute between Greece and Macedonia. Instead, voters have opened the door to instability and uncertainty. The vote, held on September 30th in Macedonia, which aimed to endorse an historic compromise agreement between the two countries over Macedonia’s name, has instead thrown the deal into question. It is on life support. But Ana Petruseva, director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Macedonia, says “it is not dead yet.”

When Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991 Greece objected to its southernmost republic keeping its name as an independent state. Greek governments claimed that the name “Macedonia” implied territorial designs on that part of historic Macedonia which lies in Greece. Over the years it tried several tactics to bring its northern neighbour to heel. In 2008 it in effect vetoed an invitation to Macedonia to join NATO, and in recent years it has prevented Macedonia from opening negotiations on accession to the EU. In June, however, the two governments struck a historic compromise. Greece would no longer wage diplomatic war on Macedonia, which in turn would change its name to North Macedonia.

On September 30th Macedonian voters cast ballots on the deal. Did they want to join NATO and the EU based on acceptance of the name change? The answer was anything but clear. The referendum was not legally binding, but a turnout of 50% of voters had been specified as needed to make the result valid. With 98.6% of votes counted, 91.5% had voted in favour of the proposition; but only 36.9% of the electorate had voted. The situation is further muddied by the fact that of 1.8m people on the voting rolls, only 1.4m are believed actually to be in the country. Nevertheless, it is clear that a vigorous online boycott campaign succeeded in persuading many not to vote.

As the results of the vote became clear Western officials, including Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, rushed to bolster the Macedonian government with congratulatory messages. The Greek government too issued a statement saying that despite “daily fake news and rampant fanaticism” it hoped that the deal would be preserved.

Opposition to the agreement has centred on the issue of identity. Greek nationalists claim that only Greeks can be Macedonians, and Gjorge Ivanov, the nationalist president of Macedonia, told the UN General Assembly on September 27th that acceptance of the deal was “a hangman’s noose” by which his country was being asked to commit “historical suicide”. It is outrageous, argue opponents of the deal, that Macedonia should change its name simply because another country demands it. But ironically, if the agreement now collapses, Macedonia’s nationalists will have handed a victory to Greek nationalists, their mortal enemies.

Zoran Zaev, the Macedonian prime minister, tried to put on a brave face after the vote. But Hristijan Mickoski, the leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Macedonia’s main opposition party, said that the deal had failed to get a green light from voters, who had sent the government a stop sign instead. Now, says Veton Latifi, a political scientist, “the real battle begins” and that will be inside parliament and with demonstrations outside of it. To pass the agreement Mr Zaev needs some opposition votes in parliament but they will be harder to get in the wake of the referendum. If he fails then he will call an early election.

Macedonia now faces a bout of instability. Even if a new election returns a government that favours the deal, all could be lost. The clock is ticking and if Macedonia is unable to ratify the deal speedily it may be too late. Greece’s main opposition party, New Democracy, is against the agreement—and likely to come to power soon, perhaps as early as May, if a general election is held there at the same time as the election for the European Parliament. In that case, a dispute that began in 1991 might drag on for another 27 years.