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Police in Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby have arrested the city's election manager for carrying a large amount of cash, on the same day voting in the capital was suspended.
Election authorities pushed today's scheduled vote in Port Moresby back to Friday after polling officials went on strike over unpaid allowances.
The PNG Electoral Commission said the vote had been delayed because it did not pay the workers their "camping allowances".
Local media said the city's election manager was arrested after being found with about $80,000 of cash in his car.
He reportedly told police the money was for the allowances.
Polls in the national election opened in some parts of the county over the weekend, in what is scheduled to be a two-week voting process.
But it has been delayed and disrupted across the country since Saturday, and is due to begin in some highlands provinces today.
Scrutineers in many parts of the country are reporting problems with the electoral roll and the distribution of ballot papers.
"There is a spectrum of experiences that have occurred in the remoter parts of the country," head of the 12-member Commonwealth Observer Group and former New Zealand governor-general, Sir Anand Satyanand, told the ABC's Pacific Beat program.
"I think the point to be made is that this is at the very beginning of a complicated and animated election for 5 million people.
"In some of the remote parts it is difficult to deliver everything on time and in an appropriate fashion."
Thousands of police and soldiers have been deployed to some of the most volatile areas of the Papua New Guinea highlands, where angry candidates say polling officials are biased and the electoral roll is inaccurate.
"I am confident that, yes we can deliver and we will deliver these elections securely and freely," police superintendent Michael Welly said yesterday.
Many voters were anticipating interference by candidates in the election process, and have threatened violence if they do not believe it is conducted fairly.
Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill, is hoping voters will overlook economic problems and corruption controversies to give him a second term.
The struggling economy and lack of government services have been at the forefront of voter concerns.
Opposition leader Don Polye — a former treasurer in Mr O'Neill's Government — has been hammering the theme of economic collapse and irresponsible borrowing in his campaign.
Topics: elections, government-and-politics, world-politics, papua-new-guinea, pacific
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