Supporters of the Democratic Party of Albanians celebrate in the main square of Tetovo following elections on Sunday. (Visar Kryeziu/Associated Press)

Macedonia's prime minister declared victory in the country's parliamentary election after a vote that was marred by gun battles that left one person dead.

Nikola Gruevski said his centre-right VMRO-DPMNE party won enough votes Sunday to gain a majority of parliament's 120 seats.

Official results have yet to be released, but initial returns showed VMRO far ahead of the opposition Social Democrats.

Gruevski described his win as a "historic victory," and headed to the capital's main square where hundreds of supporters waved party flags and chanted his name.

The gun battles that left one dead and eight others wounded were a blow to the Balkan country's hopes of proving its credentials to join the European Union and NATO.

The violence in ethnic Albanian areas forced authorities to suspend voting at 22 polling stations — one per cent of the country's total, State Electoral Commission spokesman Zoran Tanevski said.

The government said voting would be repeated in those polling stations in two weeks.

"We are deeply concerned by the many … corroborated reports of not only acts of intimidation, but also blatant violence, shooting, injuries to innocent people," Erwan Fouere, head of the EU office in Macedonia, told the Associated Press.

One person was killed and eight wounded in shootouts Sunday between rival ethnic Albanian groups or in standoffs with police, Interior Ministry spokesman Ivo Kotevski said. Twenty-one people were arrested.

Ethnic Albanians make up about a quarter of Macedonia's 2.1 million people. Rebels fought a six-month insurgency in 2001 for more rights, but now the two main ethnic Albanian political parties are locked in bitter rivalry.

For weeks, the parties — the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) led by former rebel leader Ali Ahmeti, and Menduh Thaci's Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) — have been embroiled in a frequently violent campaign.

Tensions between the two have been high since the 2006 elections, when Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski picked the DPA as a governing coalition partner even though it had won less votes than the DUI.

Those detained Sunday included former rebel commander Agim Krasniqi, who had led a group of 50 armed people into a village north of Skopje in 2004 claiming the government and ethnic Albanian leaders had broken promises to provide former rebels with amnesty and jobs.

Ahmeti's DUI said it would not recognize election results in seven municipalities, including in the main ethnic Albanian town of Tetovo, in the country's northwest, because of the violence.

"Macedonia has failed in the test of organizing free and democratic elections, which is the key test to establish a democratic state," said DUI election official Izet Mexhidi.