Chilean lawmakers agreed on Friday to hold a referendum next April on replacing the country's unpopular Pinochet-era constitution, bowing to demands of protesters who say the country's decades-old social model has created deep inequality.
The move, agreed in the early hours of the morning, boosted the country's battered markets, with the Chilean peso and the domestic equities market climbing strongly.
Amid protests that have raged for a month in the South American nation, Chile's existing Magna Carta, written and approved during General Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 military dictatorship, has become a lightning rod for anger.
Voters will be asked whether they approve the idea of a new constitution and whether current lawmakers should serve on the commission that would redraft the document.
The two-page "Agreement for Peace and a New Constitution," signed after midnight following intense negotiations, calls for a "commitment to re-establish peace and public order in Chile."
REUTERS
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