In 1959, France agreed to grant independence to its Cameroun colony and set a date of 1 January 1960 as the date the new nation would come into being. The original Constitution was hurriedly drafted in 1959 to meet this deadline. The framers based many provisions, such as those outlining the powers of the president, on French models. The Constitution went into effect on 1 January 1960. Under it, Cameroon was defined as a unitary state with a one-house parliament, whose members were directly elected under universal suffrage.DeLancey and DeLancey 86.
