Our broken hearts.

Falling in love is hell. Once in, there are few ways out that do not lead to anger, disappointment or pain. Over fifty per cent of Kenya's voters fell in love with the Jubilee belle in 2012 and on the 4th March 2013, elected Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto as the President and Deputy President of Kenya. The first months in the romance between Jubilee and its voters were a heady rush of launches, speeches, manifestos and promises. The presidential debates sealed the deal; it is only the mean-spirited among us who will deny that Uhuru Kenyatta seduced us with his erudition and calm delivery, while Raila Odinga looked stodgy, old and old-fashioned. Then came the presidential election petition, and Uhuru Kenyatta confirmed to those who swooned at his every utterance that indeed, Kenyatta the Younger was the man on the move.

A year later, the honeymoon is well and truly over. In the twelve months of the Jubilee regime, the cost of living has gone up, draconian national taxes have been imposed with pernicious economic effects on the working poor, innocent Kenyans have been shot, stabbed, and bombed and others' lives snuffed out on Mwai Kibaki's shiny highways. Mwai Kibaki had John Githongo and his Anglo-Leasing exposes; Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are yet to find their own whistle-blower, but laptops-for-tots and SGR are not what you'd describe as Jubilee's version of Mwai Kibaki's shiny highways.

In victory, Jubilee has carried on campaigning. If promises are not being kept (laptops, SGR, et al), they are still being made ("We will keep you safe; we will arrest the killers; we will stop the carnage on our roads, et cetera.". Raila Odinga has taken a sabbatical but you would not know it for all the attention semi-literate Jubilee MPs have focused on his travels overseas. Even for the cautious fence-sitters among us, it has finally dawned that the belle has turned out to be the plain sister with an axe to grind. Our rose-tinted glasses have been smashed to bits. Our hearts, if not exactly broken, have experienced an excruciating attack of romantic angina.

This shouldn't come as a surprise for the unromantic; Kenya's history with its politicians is one filled with heartache and heartbreak. Betrayal and disappointment are nothing new to us. Mwai Kibaki and his Cabinet proved it in 2003. Uhuru Kenyatta and his administration will break our hearts. They will romance us again in 2016/17 and we will fall for it. We always have and we always will. It is what it is. Falling in love, dear reader, is hell.