Skopje, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- North Macedonia's Parliament unanimously elected a new caretaker government here on Friday, paving the way for organizing free and fair elections scheduled for April 12.

Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski has been elected as care-taker prime minister after Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia resigned earlier on Friday in compliance with an agreement reached by political parties of the country after its bid for the access negotiation with the European Union was denied in October last year.

Zaev's Social-Democrat-led government took office in 2017.

Spasovski said that for him this is a great challenge and personal political and professional responsibility, adding that the opposition now is part of the government and has shared responsibility for the election process.

"Now we are all part of the institutions that has to work properly and deliver perfect, free, fair and democratic elections," Spasovski said in the Parliament.

Forming caretaker government before elections has been implemented in 2016 for the first time, after the so-called Przino Agreement, a political agreement between the main political parties in North Macedonia with the mediation of the European Union in 2015, which ended the longstanding political crises in the country.

Under the deal, which has become part of the election law, apart from the prime-minister's resignation 100 days before the elections, the biggest opposition party, the conservative VMRO-DPMNE, nominates minister for interior affairs and minister for labor and social affairs as well as deputy ministers in three other ministries.