Senate (Uzbekistan’s upper chamber of parliament) First Deputy Speaker, Sodyq Safoyev, says amendments proposed to the Uzbek constitution will allow incumbent President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to run for the third term of office.
"Should the new constitution be adopted, it will definitely allow all citizens, including the incumbent president, to stand in elections consistent with the new constitution. Whether the president uses this opportunity, this right, or not, primarily depends on this person and the party that nominates him. Yet he will have this right," Safoyev said in an interview with Kun.uz online media outlet on June 16.
The last five years have shown that President Mirziyoyev is "not a politician clinging to power," he said.
"We can see that he is a man who has devoted his life to serving the country. We can see how hard he is trying to ease the burden carried by our people and to secure their wellbeing and their future," Safoyev said, adding that, in his opinion, Mirziyoyev should carry on the reforms he started.
The largest countries in the world "recognize Shavkat Mirziyoyev as the leader of a new formation for the work he has done inside the country and in foreign politics over the past five years," he said.
"The continuity and consistency of our reforms and policy are important to us. These are the issues linked to President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. I do not know what decision he would make but I personally want this continuity to be maintained," Safoyev said.
The current constitution says that Uzbekistan holds presidential elections every five years, and the same person can't be elected president of Uzbekistan for more than two consecutive terms.
Incumbent President Mirziyoyev was elected in December 2016, following the death of First President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov in September 2016. He was reelected on October 24, 2021, with 80.12% of the vote.
Mirziyoyev embarked on his second term of office with a pledge to reform Uzbekistan’s Constitution. He did not specify what changes he had in mind, as he made the announcement when he was sworn into office on November 6, 2021. The president presented his plan to reform the constitution as a grassroots initiative. “As international practice shows, in many states in a period of radical changes constitutional reforms have been carried out,” he said.
The Uzbek constitution was adopted on December 8, 1992.
Both chambers of the Uzbek parliament appointed members of the constitutional reform commission at a joint meeting on May 20 at the proposal of the political parties. The My Constitution web portal was launched to collect public proposals on constitutional amendments.
Other Central Asian presidents have removed term limits from their constitutions, or introduced personal exemptions for themselves.
