Parking meters and political change

The protest against parking meters has changed the political landscape in odd ways. In the first place, it has demonstrated the limits of governmental power, whether central or local, although it must be conceded that this is not the first time this has happened here. The most dramatic example was when the population en masse ignored Forbes Burnham’s ban on flour and various other imported commodities, and took to widespread smuggling. However, in those days there was no social media, and the protest movement associated with the WPA was eventually suppressed. It was just that Guyanese individually or in groups, either by smuggling, transporting, selling, buying and eating flour products, etc, refused to accept the ban. Desmond Hoyte lifted it after he came to office in August 1985, and the experience had no permanent impact on the structure of our politics, other than to entrench a culture of corruption, particularly in the police force.

In the second place, many, if not most of the people who joined the demonstration outside City Hall last week and the week before, have never been part of a public protest in their lives. One thing that every serious activist in this country knows, is that no matter how vital the issue, it is well-nigh impossible to galvanise people to go on the streets to register their concerns. One reason is that most protest has been monopolized by one or other of the two major political parties, whose supporters turn out on instruction ‒ often with inducements ‒ to send a message to the government of the day. Another is, that even where responsible persons do go out to demonstrate, they are frequently met with vulgarity and verbal abuse, which are the standard intimidatory tactics in such situations in this country.

There are, of course, certain events in local areas which might cause members of a community to venture out to express their disquiet, but nothing on the scale of the Movement Against Parking Meters (MAPM). This is because in the first instance this is a virtual movement, connecting directly people who do not know each other personally, do not belong to any political party, have not been summoned by any known leader, and are focused on a single issue. The political parties might scramble to corral this amorphous group under their umbrellas, but this is not about Guyana’s ante-diluvian politics.

Owing to the composition of the MAPM and the exchanges its members have had on WhatsApp or elsewhere on social media, there is a confidence that there will be no crude behaviour at the demonstrations, and the participants will be safe. It is for this reason the two protests were advertised as “silent”, although the city

council representatives managed to insert a more familiar vulgar note into their counter protest in the case of the first one.

Perhaps this could be described as populism Guyana style. In the UK, populism against all predictions caused a majority of the electorate to vote for Brexit; in certain European countries it is fuelling the rise of the right wing; in the USA it brought Donald Trump to the office of President, and in Guyana it caused a non-political group to take aim at the parking meters. Now if the last mentioned sounds trivial in comparison with the others, that may be a premature conclusion, because potentially, at least, it could have implications for our political

This is occurring completely outside the traditional political context, and involves people on both sides of the political divide. In a matter of days the movement mounted the biggest non-political protest the city has probably ever seen without having to commandeer buses or provide lunches. It is true that all of this grew out of individual decisions on the part of drivers first of all not to use the parking meters – the kind of approach which defeated Burnham’s flour ban ‒ but with social media as an adjunct it has been transformed into something different which the politicians can’t ignore. Not only can they not ignore it, they cannot get control of it because of its unstructured nature. However, there are ways in which the movement could be undermined, particularly because it has no official leadership. Having said that, as long as drivers continue to boycott the meters, it really doesn’t matter what political skills the authorities bring to bear on the movement.

Could it develop into another political entity? That is most unlikely at this stage, but it is possible to conceive of social media being used again as a powerful pressure tool against those in authority. The city council is the body which will be most vulnerable to this, since the things which aggravate citizens in the local government dimension affect everyone on both sides of our political universe. If it evolves into a habit, then the Georgetown electorate will be exercising a watchdog role over their councillors and the Mayor, who will have to change their style of governance.

And what about the national political arena? Could we be seeing the development of an incipient fifth estate? Not in the immediate future, one suspects. Apart from anything else, the parking meters are a single issue which affect directly or indirectly a wide range of citizens and are confined to a single locale. While there are matters in the country at

large which aggravate substantial numbers no matter what their political persuasion, it is not easy to translate that into virtual action, more especially if it is necessary to follow it by physical protest. Nearly everyone is opposed to VAT on water and electricity, for example, but no one can refuse to pay GPL and GWI the 14%.

The budget as a whole with its array of new taxes on even the humblest of workers is deeply unpopular, but each segment of the population is affected by different taxes, and it is always difficult to rouse people in unison when there are so many sub-issues involved; it would be like responding to an abstraction. However, it is possible to conceive of a situation where a poor man appears in court for not paying one of the Finance Minister’s obscure new fees, and outrage being expressed on social media. Then it is possible to imagine the Ministries of Finance and the Presidency being snowed with emails, twitter messages and whatever from disgusted citizens.

If this ever became a habit, it would become a pressure tool, as mentioned above in the local context, but also a form of direct democracy since the authorities would have to take note of the demands conveyed. That would not mean that the old political structure would disappear, it would just be a question of another control on government. Of course the opposition political party could also utilize the same social media tactics, but in their case it would not be effective, since it would just become another excuse to trade insults with the government. It would only work if the composition of those expressing dissatisfaction was as heterogeneous in every respect as those opposed to the parking meters.

One thing is evident, and that is with the success it has had so far, the movement is growing in confidence; as such the Mayor and Town Clerk have had to cease the offensive rhetoric while the government has been forced to intervene. As for the formal parties, after a belated initial reaction they have finally divined that the old rules do not apply in this instance, although like everyone else it may not be clear to them how this development will evolve, and whether it is a harbinger of new arrangements to come.

It would, of course, be the ultimate joke of history if the key to unlocking Guyana’s political conundrum turned out to be a movement against parking meters, but the odds are that the country’s old-time politicians can lie comfortably in their beds for a while yet, their sleep undisturbed by the fear of any revolution in their real world being triggered by a protest in the virtual one.