East African Community producers and consumers on both sides of all borders) and losers (smugglers and the customs, police and local government officers who currently benefit from bribery at and around the borders) in the border areas. More substantial impact could be attained by a new generation of investments in world-market production based on the region's comparative advantages in natural resources (especially mining and agriculture) and the new tariff structure creates marginally better conditions for world-market exporters, by cheapening inputs and by reducing upward pressures on the exchange rate. On 1 July 2010, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki launched the East African Common Market
Forum for the Restoration of Democracy – Asili card and refusal to stand in the 1997 Presidential Elections. Martin Shikuku therefore won the party's presidential nomination and went on to win only 0.6% of the Presidential Vote, with the party winning 1 National Assembly seat. In the 2002 election, Ford-Asili won 2 out of 212 elected seats and did not field a presidential candidate, choosing to support the successful NARC alliance candidate Mwai Kibaki. In 2007, Ford-Asili supported Mwai Kibaki again as presidential candidate, this time under the Party of National Unity banner and won a single parliamentary seat in its own right (Kirinyaga Central - John Kariuki).