(cont.) shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members’. The Federal Contested Election Act (FCEA) provides the means for this. Disputes regarding the election of candidates to seats in the US Congress may be resolved by the chamber affected; this happens by the hearing and investigating of the complaint by the Committee on House Administration. The Committee reports its findings to the full House, which then votes on a final resolution. 585. In this example, the established institutions were overwhelmed by the situation and there was a need to find an alternative solution. While ideally the political culture, the protagonists and wider society are committed to safeguarding and respecting the decisions of the established institutions and it would be better if such situations never arose, the reality is that from time to time existing systems are discredited or not robust enough to resolve disputes with credibility. However, the institutional harm that results may be greater than the benefits provided by the supposed solution. The adoption of such an alternative solution should be considered very carefully, not least because it could set a dangerous precedent that could be invoked by any future losing contender who opts to question an election result and challenge the electoral authority in the expectation that the alternative solution could benefit him or her. b) International ad hoc AEDR bodies 586. In Kenya, in the aftermath of the post-election violence in 2007, the African Union through the former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, intervened to mediate an agreement and created a coalition government. In 2009, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) appointed former South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate in the conflict in Zimbabwe which followed the 2008 election. This process led to the signing of a power-sharing agreement by the belligerent parties and the formation of a government of national unity. 587. These two examples of extra-constitutional measures to resolve an electoral dispute required that the two respective parliaments ratify the agreements as a way of operationalizing the peace agreement and making them binding on all parties to the dispute. The use of external actors to negotiate and mediate during the post-election conflict in the two countries, and the subsequent decision to subject the peace agreements to parliamentary endorsement in order to make them legally binding, qualifies these initiatives as AEDR mechanisms. 192