Delegates framed a new Constitution, which made Cameroon a federation of two states under a single powerful president.
The current Constitution was adopted in 1996 in response to pressure from Anglophone Cameroonian groups advocating a return to the federal system.
It grants greater autonomy to the provinces (renamed regions) and established a Senate as the upper house to the National Assembly.
The Constitution begins with a preamble that names the Cameroonian people's cultural and linguistic diversity as an integral part of the nation but expresses the desire to form a unitary government.
[3] Part One (Articles one–3) gives the name of the country as the Republic of Cameroon and defines the coat of arms, motto, flag, anthem, and seal.
Sovereignty is placed in the hands of the people, and government authorities are established as being elected by "direct or indirect universal suffrage" via secret ballot.
Part III (Article 14–24) establishes and define the parliament and the means of the selection of its members and its operations.
Alternatively, the president may submit the amendment to a public referendum, which requires a simple majority to pass.
Under it, Cameroon was defined as a unitary state with a one-house parliament, whose members were directly elected under universal suffrage.
[4] When British Southern Cameroons voted to join with French Cameroun 21 months later, delegates of both the Francophone and Anglophone portions of the country drafted a new Constitution at the Foumban Conference.
In 1969, the Constitution was amended to "prolong the life of the federal assembly" and to alter the selection process for the prime ministers of the states.
For many years, the vice-president and the prime minister of West Cameroon were the same person, but in 1970, another amendment stipulated that the vice president could not hold any other government office.
The document abolished the federal system and placed broad political power in the position of the president.
This successor or interim president was forbidden to make or change laws or the structure of government, to alter the Constitution, or to participate in the presidential election.
Paul Biya responded to the pressure, and on 18 January 1996, Law Number 96/06 enacted a new Constitution in Cameroon.
The vote took place after the opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) representatives walked out of the assembly, and just one month after the 2008 Cameroonian anti-government protests, widespread violence that resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of arrests of demonstrators protesting price rises and the proposed constitutional changes.
[8][9] There was limited public discussion of the changes leading up to the vote, with declarations by SDF leader John Fru Ndi reportedly prohibited in the national press and television by Alain Belibi Director of Information at the CRTV.
[10] A song titled "50 years in power" by popular Cameroon singer Longuè Longuè was also reportedly banned by the Director of Programmes at the CRTV, Celestin Boten, and one journalist who had played the song, Billy Karson, was suspended and banned from air.
[16] The Presidential Delegate Minister to the National Assembly, Gregoire Owona, reportedly indicated on the Cameroon state-owned national radio station, CRTV, that he had seen a procuration signed by Paul Abine Ayah, however Ayah insisted that he had not signed a procuration for the period of the constitutional law vote but only for the period 28 March 2008 to 31 March 2008.
[17] On 17 April 2008 the daily newspaper Quotidien Mutations published what was purported to be a procuration signed by Abine Ayah for the period of the vote.
[18][19] However, Abine Ayah continued to deny having signed a procuration and insisted the published document was a fake.