Who thinks that the SAF should gain a few seats in Parliament,similar to the setup in Indonesia?
What would the effects be?
Would it be similar to the effects in Indonesia or Turkey where the military is the arbiter of power?
Similarly,being a citizens army,would it not give Singaporean citizens greater power?
Just want to have a discussion on the topic.Hypothetical situation
Perhaps the SAF is already represented by our Defence Minister RADM Teo Chee Hean.
It's not advisable to mix political system with the military system. They play different roles and more or less operate separately. The military bigwigs have too much potential to cause chaos if they had a say in the running of the country. Just look at Indonesia's history ...
Same goes for the judicial system. Imagine if the goverment has total control of the judicial system, the big shot ministers can never get charged for any wrong doing.
What for?
What you're suggesting is, essentially, personal political power. As if there's not enough warlordish tendencies in SE Asia - not just with Indonesia, but also Thailand, Philippines & Myanmar. Only S'pore & Malaysia adopted the British model within this region.
The political "control" of the SAF machine is detailed in Huxley's book, in the "Command & Control" chapter (I believe).
1stly, it's not a citizen army per se. 2ndly, any military organization is never meant to be democratic. 3rdly, the military is more concerned with policy-making, not Parliamentary feedback. 4thly, the SAF has actually institutionalized itself a lot from the days when LKY, GKS, Lim Kim San & George Boogars (Perm Sec) oversaw everything.
In the S'pore context, defence matters are very serious business - FWIW only trusted people are allowed to participate & only vetted representatives could gain insights via committees like the GPCs. With the military itself, there's 3 channels of political command: via the Defence Minister, a cabinet post (the SAF reports to the CDF who reports to MINDEF); via the formal Defence Council & via the Armed Forces Council (comprising cabinet ministers, perm sec's & senior military officers). Their decisions tend to be - luckily - objective cuz they only concern with policymaking, rather than jostling for power/influence.
Even then, when criticism is due they're more associated with over-bureaucratism & quantitativeness - whether in areas of military ops/combat analysis ("scenario planning"), logistic support/system acquisition, manpower planning, finance management & crisis resolution (the Cable Car Rescue rebutted skeptics). Not everyone like the idea of defence-experienced civil servants posted to MINDEF or bonded scholars deployed in the SAF, of course - ultimately all of them are indirectly "subservient" to the PAP direction. But, on the other hand, the President now has certain veto powers over military decisions &plus since the '80s, the Defence Minister could not suka-suka appoint or fire senior officers like before.
The SAF or any other Army fights for its people....no matter the government...
whether it is communism or democracy..it doesnt matter...its the people they protect...furthermore...politics and the military somehow dont mix....