Empty streets and decay in Naypyidaw as junta struggles to project control

Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s purpose-built capital, is marked by empty boulevards, crumbling buildings and manicured gardens as the ruling junta seeks to present order during a monthlong election season. Reporters and a photographer were allowed to observe Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing voting in the military zone, but much of the city remained sparsely populated.

Built as a vast bunker for the country’s top brass, Naypyidaw is divided into strict zones — military, hotel, ministry and parliament — and is home to villas, electric vehicle chargers and sculpted topiaries alongside color-coded civil servant housing. Officials say about a million people live there, a figure the article calls farcical; the electorate in the capital largely comprises civil servants, military families and attendants.

The National League for Democracy has been dissolved, and its leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is reported to be imprisoned somewhere in Naypyidaw. Observers found signs of neglect: chipped tiles, mold, low hotel occupancy, a zoo whose birds had died and civil servants left homeless after an earthquake living in bamboo shelters.

At checkpoints, Chinese-made X-ray and face-scanning systems were used but appeared to falter, and everyday life was thin — so few cars travel the wide avenues that oxen were seen crossing without fear. The city’s isolation has not made it immune to violence. A bomb detonated near a polling-school on Dec.

Key Topics

World, Naypyidaw, Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar Junta, Nld, Defense Services Museum