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19
On smart cities, safe cities,
and political realities
After coming out of a five-decade-long military dictatorship in 2010, the
Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) relinquished their power to transitional
civilian governments for a little over 10 years, during which time the
country made notable progress as a democracy. In 2015, the long-time
opposition party against the military, NLD won a landslide victory in
the second general election since the transition, under the leadership
of Myanmar’s icon of democratic struggle, Aung San Suu Kyi, and
became the first government with popular civilian support. However,
this reign of power was not without grave problems either – during the
military operation that forced out more than 730,000 Rohingya, the NLD
government stayed silent, and Aung San Su Kyi rejected the accusations
of genocide against the Rohingya in The Hague.15
Between 2010 and 2021, a focus on technological development as a
marker of democratic progress became gradually apparent. Smart city
achievements were lauded as progressive developments in a country
coming out of decades of dictatorship and are at the centre of a rapidly
growing surveillance infrastructure in Myanmar.16 Of all the cities across
Myanmar, Mandalay has received much media attention compared to
other cities for the openness and progress of the MCDC, the administrative
body of Mandalay. Members of MCDC have been relatively more engaging
than other regional governments, evidenced by the availability of
information in media, reports,17 and the committee's appearances in
public interviews. The Mandalay government promoted and touted AIdriven smart cities as the enabler of success and modernisation during
the five-year NLD terms.18 This is galvanised by regional recognition for
their progress in implementing technology-enhanced public services;
the implementation committee received an award19 and Mandalay was
ranked fifth20 in Southeast Asia’s top 10 cities in the process of becoming
a smart city in 2018. Just a few months before the end of the NLD term