PORT MORESBY -- A general election in Papua New Guinea descended into chaos on Monday with voters including Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta unable to cast ballots amid reports of voting irregularities across the country.

Morauta had characterized the election as the most crucial in cash-strapped and crime-ridden PNG since independence in 1975 but almost every province where voting was scheduled on Monday reported delays or missing ballot boxes and papers.

Morauta arrived to cast his ballot at a school in the capital Port Moresby but was unable to vote because the polling station was closed. Stations across the city had been due to open at 8.00 A.M. (2200 GMT Sunday) but many were still closed at noon, Reuters reported.

"This is more than a bungle," Morauta told reporters. "We are hearing some stories...that supporters of some...candidates are being seen distributing ballot papers." "Someone should be held up and hung for this," he said.

A record 2,875 candidates representing 43 parties in 109 seats are contesting the election in a country where no government has served a full five-year term since independence.

Opinion polls have shown strong support for Prime Minister Morauta but a long and complicated round of horse trading and coalition-building is expected when voting is finally completed.

Voting started slowly on Saturday, with electoral officials complaining that funds had arrived late and they had not had time to hire helicopters and boats to get to inaccessible electorates in rugged highland areas and on far-flung islands.

Voting will be spread over 12 days but officials do not expect a result for at least a month as counts trickle back from remote areas where many of the 5.1 million population eke out subsistence livings and cling to centuries-old tribal traditions.

--- Voting Security --- Newspapers on Monday reported many delays and irregularities, including the theft of 20 ballot boxes in the remote western highlands region. The boxes were later found.

Morauta earlier expressed concern that ballot papers and boxes were to be distributed on Sunday night before voting on Monday in his Port Moresby electorate.

Distribution is usually scheduled on the morning polls open.

"This creates very serious potential for breaches of electoral security and is completely unacceptable," Morauta said in a statement issued late on Sunday.

Morauta clashed repeatedly with the electoral commission before the poll and tried unsuccessfully to have the election delayed because of concern about the electoral roll, which he alleged contained thousands of "ghost voters".

Morauta said, for example, a recent PNG census showed there were 8,100 people living on Manam Island, 650km (404 miles) north of Port Moresby, yet 9,360 voters were registered.

Morauta came to power in July 1999, vowing to stamp out the corruption which had become endemic in his South Pacific country.

His reformist agenda, which includes a widespread privatization program, has been backed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Papua New Guinea is rich in oil, gas, copper and timber but remains poor and under-developed, held back by corruption, riots, army mutinies and tribal wars in the past five years.