Bad weather, candidates disrupt PNG election count

PORT MORESBY, July 30 (Reuters) Four weeks after the first vote was cast in the island nation of Papua New Guinea, voters have no idea who will form the next government, with counting disrupted by bad weather and objections from candidates.

Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen has extended the election process for another week, hoping to conclude counting on August 6, but even then there will be no government.

Parliament is now not due to sit until August 13 when the politicians will elect a prime minister.

''Apart from bad weather that seriously affected polling ...

continuous interruptions to the counting process by candidates and their scrutineers have worsened the situation,'' Trawen said in a statement received on Monday.

The election started on June 30 and was scheduled to last 11 days to enable voters travelling by canoe or on foot to reach polling stations in the jungle-clad, mountainous interior. Torrential rain forced an extension to voting.

The island's 2,000 strong security force spread across the nation to prevent a recurrence of bloody violence that marred a 2002 poll.

Election officials said there had been no major violence although a handful of people were killed and there were some reports of ballot box highjackings and double voting.

Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare's National Alliance party has so far won 25 seats and looks like being the biggest party in the 109-seat parliament, in which case his party would be offered the first chance to form a coalition government.

The next biggest grouping is 17 independents, one a convicted rapist serving a 12-year jail term, with other parties winning only a handful of seats each.

Intense horsetrading to form the minimum 55-seat coalition has prompted authorities to warn parties not to intimidate newly elected politicians to join a coalition.

If 71-year-old Somare, ''The Father of the Nation'' as Papua New Guinea's founding prime minister in 1975, can cobble together another government he will win a fourth term as prime minister.

Somare's last government was the first since independence to serve a full five-year term, with previous governments toppled by votes of no confidences or forced by disunity to call early elections.

A seat in parliament, and more importantly in government, is seen as a ticket to wealth and lawmakers are expected to share government funds generously with fellow villagers.

PNG has struggled to benefit from its mineral resources. Most of its 5.1 million people live a subsistence life in villages, where tribal warfare, sorcery, crime and corruption are rife.

REUTERS SW PM1345