The main contenders were incumbent President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki and his former ally Raila Odinga.
Kibaki was declared the winner and sworn in on 30 December, despite opposition leader Raila Odinga's claims of victory.
Following the declaration, violent protests erupted particularly in Kibera, and this included ethnic violence targeted against Kikuyu people living outside their traditional settlement areas, especially in the Rift Valley Province.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan brokered a power-sharing agreement which included the appointment of the Waki Commission to investigate the violence.
The other two commission members were Gavin Alistair McFadyen, a former police assistant commissioner in New Zealand and Pascal K. Kambale, a lawyer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who was working on the Open Society Institute's Africa Governance, Monitoring and Advocacy Project.