TASHKENT, March 14. /TASS/. Uzbekistan’s Senate (upper house of parliament) has approved the lower house’s decision to hold a referendum on the country’s new draft constitution on April 30, the Uzbekistan-24 television channel reported on Tuesday.

Earlier, the upper house approved a bill on the country’s new constitution that had been passed by the Legislative Chamber (lower house) on March 10.

The new constitution will have 155 articles instead of the current 128. The number of constitutional norms will also be increased from 275 to 434.

Under the new constitution, the president, speakers of both houses of parliament, chairperson of the Supreme Court, chairperson and deputy chair of the Supreme Judicial Council, chairperson of the Central Election Commission, prosecutor general, and several other officials would be barred from holding office for more than two consecutive terms.

The constitutional reform was initiated by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in December 2021. In May 2022, Uzbekistan’s parliament set up a commission to draft amendments to the 1992 constitution. The president also came out with an initiative to hold a nationwide referendum on the constitutional amendments. The nationwide discussion of the bill on constitutional amendments was initially slated to last until July 4, 2022, but was extended following mass riots on July 1 and 2 in Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan, in which protesters demonstrated against the proposed change in the region’s status in the new draft of the constitution. After that, President Mirziyoyev decided against introducing amendments that would have stripped Karakalpakstan of its status as a sovereign republic within Uzbekistan and the right to leave Uzbekistan based on a secession referendum.