Kibaki and Smokers

It is election time yet again and the promises are flowing in like hell. This is the first time am in a proper mind to notice this lie that electioneering is. In the last election in 2002, I was a drunk undergraduate who dint have time for election crap, the elections preceding that found me too young to grasp anything.
This time round, am a broke and jobless graduate with all the time to ask 'what went wrong' since am beginning to feel that political misappropriation is partly responsible for my barrenness.
When this government came to power, they swept our filthy system so clean it hurt. The matatu industry was shaken into sobriety. What's more, even the touts had to put on Uniforms.
The hawkers on their part were not spared. They were swept out of the city centre to a distant ten kilometre away since they were an 'eyesore' in our beautiful city. With them went the street families and street urchins dragging away their jigger infested limbs to where tourists could not see them.
There are also these characters in the name of Mungiki, most of whom were the youth. After terrorizing the country for long enough, the government decided to roll up its sleeves and engage them in a fist fight. The president and his internal security minister ordered the police to leave no mungiki skull un-cracked, fire would be met with fire. What followed was a massive man-hunt that saw many a youth, most of them mungiki, sink six feet under.
We also bore the brunt of these new guidelines. We were not allowed to smoke aimlessly in the streets and inconvenience non-smokers with our cancer-ridden exhalations. They made seclusions for us and like animals in an amusement park, other city residents pointed at us as they passed by our designated smoking zones.
That was then, this is now. The city cleaners are now back and this time it is not to sweep us away but to woo our votes. Knowing only too well that all that ordeal they put us through was for a right cause but not being manly enough to stand by it and let history judge them, they approach us with a devious smile, half apologetic for the 'cleaning' they had to do while in office.
Its interesting what people can do to remain in power. They can even go as far as discrediting their 'good record' just to remain in power. As we speak, the hawkers in the city center are more than the other city residents going about their businesses in the Nairobi City. Their brothers, the street urchins, are back too smearing the pavements with jiggers and feaces as they beg for a penny.
(Just a Sidekick: If the economy really grew as they claim it did during their tenure, how comes the number of hawkers has seemingly doubled and the street communities are growing into societies?)
Recently, I was surprised to read in the press that the president had relaxed the rules for touts and they dont have to report to work in uniform. The reasons given were that the uniforms were expensive and costly for the touts who earn a pittance. Wasn't that the case when the rule was being introduced and if not, has the economy grown that bad that uniforms that were cheap then are expensive now?
The president has also asked the police to stop brutalising the youth (read mungiki). Is this some sort of guilt on the government's side? And why should they feel guilty if what they did was right. I am getting this feeling that to get votes, you cant just stand up to be counted, you have to renounce your reforms if you have a feeling that they might have rubbed some people the wrong way. Is this what democrazy means in your dictionaries? Someone should enlighten me.
Now to my predicament. Someone has deliberately decided to forget about us, the smokers. Despite all the good rules being relaxed all around us, we still have to gather in shaming groups at designated spaces to take our cancer sticks. Mr. president and your men, we too have votes you know. We also need the reprieve.
Why not let us go back to smoking in the streets like the hawkers are now allowed to sore eyes in the city center and like the chokoras are now allowed to smear the pavements? Together with the touts who don't have to wear uniform for now and the 'youth' who are not being harassed by the police, we will go back to our pre-election existence once you get to power.
After all, its votes you want for now and its votes we smokers also have, for now. I speak for the smokers you speak for want of the votes, do you hear me?