PRISTINA (Reuters) - North Macedonia's opposition parties led by the centre-right VMRO-DPMNE filed a no-confidence motion on Monday to bring down the government of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who resigned last week but wants his Socialist-led alliance to remain in office.

       Zaev, who quit over his party's poor performance in mayoral elections in towns including the capital Skopje, has said the ruling coalition could pick a new prime minister without the need for a new general election. He has yet to formally submit his resignation to parliament.

       “The continuation of this government means deeper problems,” said lawmaker Aleksandar Nikolovski from VMRO-DPMNE, announcing that it and other opposition parties had secured the 61 votes in the 120-seat parliament to bring the government down.

       He said he expected parliament to convene at the earliest on Thursday.

       Zaev's Social Democrats led a party alliance that squeaked to a narrow victory ahead of VMRO-DPMNE in a parliamentary election last year.

       Zaev first became prime minister in 2017 and put the country on a path towards EU membership by agreeing to add "North" to its name to resolve a decades-old dispute with Greece, which has a province called Macedonia.

       (Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Peter Graff)