Macedonia's ruling conservatives and the opposition Social Democrats both claimed victory in snap elections held in the hope of solving a two-year long deep political crisi, AFP reports.

"VMRO-DPMNE is the winner of this election," Nikola Gruevski, party leader and prime minister since 2006, told supporters at the party's headquarters.

However, shortly afterwards the opposition Social Democrats (SDSM) also claimed to have won.

"We are the winners!" Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev told a cheering crowd of supporters in front of the government building in central Skopje.

"We have one more seat, we are waiting for the final results ... but the trend is clearly in our favour."

With votes counted at 96 percent of polling stations the VMRO-DPMNE had a narrow lead of less than 1.5 percent of votes.

According to analysts, with the results too close to call it was not possible to provide a reliable projection on the number of seats each side will have in parliament until the last votes are counted.

For voters, the most important outcome will be to get a government capable of regaining stability after the long political crisis.

"What do I expect? I expect this agony to end," 55-year-old Zoran Milevski told AFP after he cast his ballot at a school-turned-polling station in central Skopje.

The vote was called as part of a European Union-brokered deal between Macedonia's four main political parties after a mass wiretapping scandal erupted in February 2015 and sparked rival street protests.

No major incidents were reported during the day, electoral officials said, although observers warned of some irregularities. However, none of the parties has complained about the process or results so far.

The turnout was higher than at previous elections, around 66 percent.