APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 88 88 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL and politician. While a few youths benefit, the majority fall prey to marginalization in the form of skewed resource distribution and poverty, oppression, hunger, hopelessness, insecurity, and violence. Anton Blok notes that it is important to understand an act of violence through the context in which it occurs and within the ‘context of its antecedents to see whether it resembles earlier acts’.44 By 2002 the KANU government had lost legitimacy with the people, which is why the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition won resoundingly in elections that year. Failure by the NARC and PNU governments to deal with exclusion through reforms also destroyed their legitimacy. In the 2005 referendum and 2007 elections, the platform upon which a majority of youths voted was constitutional reform, arguably because the incumbent regime had failed to respond to popular demands. The country’s weak institutions further fertilized the ground for violence. The presidency, judiciary, parliament, and administrative organs had failed to deliver expected or needed services. In 2007 the opposition did not perceive the electoral process as fair; their lose would mean continued deprivation and exclusion. After the elections, the opposition believed the justice system would work in favor of the incumbent regime, so appealing to the government to resolve the electoral dispute was not considered an option worth pursuing. Violence was an alternative. The violence of 2007–2008 was dictated more by youths’ environment than by the announced election results. Weak governing institutions acted as accelerators. The police were singled out as one of the key contributors to violence.45 According to an NPI–Africa report, the police had harassed youths to the point that dealing with law enforcement became one of the main challenges facing them: ‘Our findings confirm that leading challenges experienced by the respondents was unemployment; this was followed by poverty and harassment by the Kenya police and Nairobi City Council authorities’.46 The Independent Review Commission, popularly known as the Kreigler Commission, was established in 2008 by the coalition government based on recommendations contained in agenda number four of the post-election National Dialogue and Reconciliation process.47 It was charged with the mandate of conducting a review of the 2007 general election and made recommendations for strengthening electoral laws and institutions and drafting a new constitution for Kenya. On 28 February 2008, Raila Odinga of ODM and Mwai Kibaki of PNU, the two principals in the coalition government established through the National Reconciliation Accord, signed a commitment toward implementation of agenda four, representing a starting point for peacebuilding.48 44. Anton Blok in Stephen Ellis, ‘Violence and history: A response to Thandika Mkandawire’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 41:3 (2003), 457–75. 45. ‘Report of the Independent Review Commission on the general elections held in Kenya on 27 December 2007’, Nairobi, 2008, 4. 46. Nairobi Peace Initiative–Africa, ‘A review of challenges faced by Kenyan youth’, 23. 47. ‘Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation, through the mediation of H.E. Kofi A. Annan and the panel of eminent African personalities: On the resolution of the political crisis. Annotated agenda and timetable’, February 2008. 48. ‘Report of the Independent Review Commission on the general elections’. Agenda four, as part of the national dialogue process, calls for constitutional, institutional, and legal reforms tackling regional inequity and poverty, land reforms, unemployment among youth, national cohesion, transparency and accountability, and impunity.