North Macedonia's ruling party said it expected its pro-West candidate to beat his nationalist-backed rival in a presidential run-off on Sunday, as official ballot counting was underway.
The vote pitted the ruling Social Democrats' pick Stevo Pendarovski against right-wing favoured candidate Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova.
"Stevo Pendarovski is leading and we expect him to win," ruling party official Aleksandar Kiracovski said after the polls closed, citing intial results from the party's own polling.
Official electoral commission figures showed 44.5 percent of the electorate had voted 30 minutes before polls closed, ending fears that the election could fail to clear a required turnout threshold of 40 per cent.
Now all eyes are on who will clinch the lead.
The contenders finished in a near dead-heat in the first round last month, reflecting the split over the government's decision to change the country's name to North Macedonia and thus end a long-running row with Greece.
While the presidency is a largely ceremonial role, the office can exercise some veto powers.
The current president, opposition-backed Gjorge Ivanov, has been refusing to sign bills in protest at the name change finalised earlier this year.
After casting her ballot Sunday, 63-year-old candidate Siljanovska-Davkova told reporters she would "respect" the new name officially, but not use it herself.
If the law professor were to win however, it would be a rebuke to the government that staked its reputation on the name accord. The deal ended a nearly 30-year identity row with Athens and cleared Skopje's path towards NATO and the EU.
Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, a top architect of the deal, has said he would call an early general elections if Siljanovska-Davkova wins.
Pendarovski, however, expressed confidence of a "massive victory" on Sunday, saying he believed voters would rally around his call for a "unified North Macedonia, with all ethnic communities being equal to each other".
Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority, which forms up to a quarter of the roughly 2.1 million population, could prove decisive.
Their presidential candidate, Blerim Reka, dropped out after garnering 11 per cent in the first round.
He did not publicly back either of the two frontrunners by name, but he has urged Albanians to vote for the "pro-Western agenda", which Pendarovski espouses.
Roza Jovanova, a 70-year-old voter in Skopje, said she was hoping for a unifying force in country that has weathered repeated bouts of political turmoil in recent years.
"The country has been divided for a long time and I think one of the first duties of the new president must be to work to reduce this division," she said.
Low wages, high unemployment and widespread corruption have also gnawed away at public faith in politics.
Huge numbers of young people have left the country in recent years, sowing fears of a "brain drain" crisis.
Last month's first round of voting saw a record-low turnout of just over 41 per cent.
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