APRM • SECOND COUNTRY REVIEW REPORT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA • Dovetailing into the period of constitutional, structural, and institutional re-engineering to renew and consolidate Kenya’s status as a multi-party democratic state, from 2007 to the present. 2. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS UNDER EACH THEMATIC AREA 2.1 Democracy and Political Governance 2.1 The last decade (2006-2016) has been one in which Kenya has moved beyond the postelection violence of 2007/8 to taking steps toward multi-party democratic renewal and consolidation. The result has been a largely commendable display of ingenuity and restraint geared to move the nation more in the direction of civility and restrained engagement for the restoration of peace through a process of negotiations leading to innovative constitutional and institutional re-engineering to restore and sustain Kenya’s interrupted march toward multi-party democratic statehood. Within the framework of the 2008 post-crisis National Accord, the government demonstrated its commitment to the implementation of longstanding issues, including constitutional and institutional reforms, police and judicial reforms, socio-economic inequalities, corruption, accountability and youth unemployment and other issues. 2.2 Many international standards and codes related to democracy and political governance were ratified and domesticated, and by the time the 2010 Constitution came into force, domestication was no longer required for ratified standards and codes. The Constitution has been hailed as one of the best things to happen to Kenya. It has brought a stronger legal and institutional basis for democracy and good governance, with emphasis on an entrenched and extensive Bill of Rights, rule of law and due process, independent commissions, separation of powers with attendant checks and balances, reduction in executive powers, a system of devolution of powers leading to the creation of 47 County Governments at the local level, bringing government closer to the people with extensive provision for public participation in the governmental process, as well as reforms to strengthen autonomy, transparency, representativeness and inclusiveness of various branches and key institutions of government and of civil society as well as those for election and security governance. 2.3 In practice and as reflected in public perception, challenges persist in the full realization of the objectives of the reform process. They include among other things, corruption, poverty, lack of accountability, politically mobilised ethnicity, and historical patterns of marginalization, but the opening of the political spaces has generated a momentum for democracy and good governance difficult to halt, especially coupled as it is by gains in the promotion and protection of political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights, including the rights of women, children, the youth, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups, and a burgeoning and highly plural and vibrant media landscape. | 33 |