Macedonia ? Macedonia’s prime minister declared victory Sunday in the Balkan country’s parliamentary election after a vote that was marred by gunbattles that left one person dead and eight wounded.

Nikola Gruevski said his center-right VMRO-DPMNE had won enough votes to gain a majority of parliament’s 120 seats, and opposition leader Radmila Sekerinska conceded defeat.

Sunday’s violence was a blow to Macedonia’s hopes of proving its credentials to join the European Union and NATO. But Gruevski said in his victory speech that while he regretted the violence, the vote was mostly fair and peaceful.

“Macedonia has the power to go ahead. The country has the energy for progress to join NATO and EU,” he said.

Hundreds of Gruevski’s supporters spilled onto the main square in Skopje, the capital, to celebrate, waving party flags and chanting his name.

Jovan Josifovski, the head of the state election commission, said with votes from 97 percent of polling stations counted, VMRO won 48.21 percent of the vote – far ahead of the Social Democrats’ 23.19 percent.

The Democratic Party of Albanians had about 10.33 percent, while the rival ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration had about 11.23 percent.

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