Nadarajah Loganathan and Michael Chua are two Progress Singapore Party (PSP) members introduced in a press conference on Thursday (25 June) as candidates for the upcoming general election who have long, varies careers with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).
Mr Loganathan is a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the SAF, having served for 25 years. After completing his ground tour in 1994, Mr Loganathan took on several human resources development appointments in the armed forces before being entrenched in the training community for the last 8 years of his military career.
Mr Chua, on the other hand, left active service in 2002 and continued to perform National Service as an NSmen as a Deputy Brigade Commander till 2016. During this time in the SAF, Mr Chua pursued a master’s degree in Operations Research in Naval Postgraduate School under Defence Technology Training Award.
When asked about critics who argue that there are already too many military men politics, Mr Loganathan explained that some who have reached the apex of their military career choose to enter into the public life to continue serving.
Mr Chua offered that it does not make sense to have a Cabinet that is entirely comprised of military folks. He said, “The challenge is that with such a makeup of a cabinet that is dominated with people from military as well as civil service background, there is a very serious danger of groupthink.”
He emphasised that both he and Mr Loganathan as well as other candidates from the PSP with military backgrounds, also have experience in the private sector which means they are not just “one dimensional”.
