By Charles Haviland BBC correspondent, Colombo

	President has proposed to set up a Senate with more Tamils

The country’s constitution has an amendment providing for devolution of powers to the provinces but this has never been fully implemented.

Since his government’s decisive war victory last May President Mahinda Rajapaksa has spoken of the need for ethnic reconciliation.

But his critics say he has offered few concrete plans to back that up.

Merging provinces

He has now made his clearest public rejection of proposals put forward by a parliamentary committee, which would increase the powers of the provinces in line with constitutional provisions.

	Prof. Vitharana has been chairing APRC meetings for few years

Many Tamil people would like that as two out of the nine provinces have an ethnic Tamil majority.

Mr Rajapaksa has now said he does not think any generally acceptable solution has yet been suggested, so “after the present election I am going to put forward my own solution to the problem”.

He has remained vague on what this means although he has spoken of a possible upper house of parliament.

Devolution may be a popular idea among Tamils but it is a dirty word for many of the Sinhalese majority – including a Sinhalese nationalist party supporting Mr Rajapaksa’s opponent, General Sarath Fonseka, which is absolutely opposed to increased provincial powers.

It all makes this election a difficult choice for many Tamils.

President Rajapaksa has also made clear his rejection of an eight-year-old constitutional amendment, which would provide independent commissions in many spheres of public life including the police and anti-corruption.

He said commissions cannot be independent as they are appointed by politicians.

Without this amendment being implemented, Sri Lanka does not have even an election commission – only one man, the commissioner.