LIMA, Peru -- A congressional commission on Monday approved the draft of a revised Peruvian constitution to overhaul the 1993 text that was designed to keep disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori in power.

The full congress could approve the text, that would reinstate some of the features of the earlier 1979 constitution, as early as next January, a lawmaker said.

"This is a total reform that basically makes for a new constitution," Antero Flores Araoz, a legislator for opposition party Unidad Nacional and a member of congress' constitutional commission, told Reuters.

He said the constitutional overhaul would divide Peru's 120-member congress -- which now consists of just one chamber -- into a 50-member senate and 150-member house of deputies. It would also create two electoral agencies, he said.

Other changes would include giving courts and judges greater independence and reinstating certain labor benefits, Flores Araoz said.

He added that the new document would need to be approved by two consecutive legislatures and that a referendum, which must be held on the issue, could happen.

Fujimori, who ruled this poor Andean nation with an iron fist from 1990-2000, introduced a new constitution in 1993, the year after a so-called "self-coup" that tightened his grip on power. Under his rule, political opponents were hounded.

Fujimori changed the constitution to allow a president to be reelected -- a move that allowed him to be reelected to an unprecedented third term in 2000. Months later, he fled to Japan and was fired by congress in November 2000 at the height of a government corruption scandal.

Peru is now seeking his extradition on charges of responsibility for human rights crimes.

President Alejandro Toledo, who took office last July promising jobs and a war on poverty, said his government would bring a new era of transparent politics for Peru.