Kazakhstan will hold a constitutional referendum on March 15, the state newspaper announced on Thursday, with the measure to further restrict freedom of expression if passed.
Since coming to power in 2019, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has faced no opponents and boosted his personal control over the Central Asian state, an ally of Russia which also fosters warm ties with China.
But Tokayev pledged to reform the political system in the wake of deadly protests over the high cost of living in January 2022. Officially, 238 people were killed in the protests.
In the wake of the unrest, Tokayev also moved to quash the power of his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had led the country for almost three decades and maintained significant influence over the country.
The planned amendments will abolish the senate in favour of a unicameral parliament, according to a report published in the government-backed Kazakhstanskaya Pravda.
A vice presidential office will also be reinstated, with some observers seeing it as a likely move to foster a successor to 72-year-old Tokayev, who has said he will not run again in 2029.
"There is no doubt that the constitutional amendments ... will overhaul the entire state system," he said at the end of January.
In comments earlier this month he said the country "is moving toward a presidential republic with an influential parliament".
The Amanat ruling party overwhelmingly dominates Kazakhstan's legislature, and many opposition political movements have been banned.
The proposed amendments would further restrict freedom of expression, by inscribing that public speech must not "undermine the morality of society or violate public order".
It will also be easier to curtail the rights to protest, based on what the state calls the need to protect the morality of society or national security.
Other changes would see a symbolic downgrade of the Russian language -- still widely spoken across the country and in bureaucratic settings.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has accelerated a push by Central Asian states to boost their national and cultural identities, long undermined during decades of rule by Moscow during the Russian Empire and Soviet Union.
Russian would now be "used alongside" rather than "on an equal footing" with Kazakh in official settings.
