* Congo Senate approves reforms reducing polls to one round
* Changes seen benefitting incumbent Kabila's re-election
(Writes through with details)
By Jonny Hogg
KINSHASA, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Congo's Senate approved proposed constitutional changes on Thursday reducing this year's presidential election to one round, in a move likely to boost incumbent President Joseph Kabila's chances of winning.
The upper house voted overwhelmingly for the reforms -- 71 for, one against with nine abstentions -- which were adopted by the National Assembly on Tuesday and must now be approved with a 60 percent majority in a joint sitting of the two houses.
Information Minister Lambert Mende told Reuters that the vote would be held on Friday, the final day of the current parliamentary session.
Francois Mwamba, secretary general of the MLC, the biggest opposition party, said it would not take part in the debate in the joint session but would lobby against the reforms.
"We are going to carry on talking to the international community, so that they don't fall into this trap," he said.
Kabila says the vast central African country cannot afford two rounds of voting like in 2006, when donors paid hundreds of millions of dollars for elections that saw Kabila beat former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba in a tense run-off.
But his rivals, who now include some former Kabila allies and would most likely form an alliance against him in a run-off, have accused Kabila of trying to facilitate his re-election and threatened street protests to block the move.
Both sides are eyeing the post-election crisis in Ivory Coast, where the two candidates in a run-off vote both claimed victory and a bloody power-struggle has ensued.
Kabila's camp says it highlights the dangers of holding a run-off but his rivals point to it as proof that opposition groups can rally around one candidate to challenge an incumbent previously thought to be unbeatable.
Congo's 2006 election renewed investor confidence in the former Belgian colony after decades of dictatorship and a conflict that killed some five million people.
Riding high commodity prices and the relative stability, major firms returned to tap into vast copper and cobalt reserves and search for possible oil fields.
But Kabila has struggled to make good on many promises on development and pacifying the east, where rebel and lawless army units roam. His government has been accused of corruption and the business environment is still one of the world's trickiest.
Relations with United Nations peacekeepers, who helped provide logistics for the 2006 poll, have since soured and the world body's mandate in the country has been diluted to reduce the political clout it enjoyed during post-war years. (Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Maria Golovnina)
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