Open fire on military and lose votes

The more you attack the military, the less support you're going to get from the armed forces, Mindef warns the opposition.

KUALA LUMPUR: The armed forces will not support the opposition if the latter attacks the purchase of military equipment.

Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Latiff Ahmad said that those politicising military matters risked hurting the feelings of Malaysia’s soldiers.

Though he did not specifically label the opposition, he told the Dewan Rakyat: “When it is politicised, our soldiers feel hurt. It doesn’t matter if (they’re) from the navy, ground (forces) or from the air (force).”

“Each time the government makes a decision to procure new assets, they (the military) are very happy, because they are trained to be a professional army.

“So if that party… the more they condemn these assets, the more support the Barisan Nasional federal government gets,” he said.

Abdul Latiff said this in response to a supplementary question by Sri Gading MP (Umno) Mohamed Aziz, who asked about certain parties playing up issues related to defence.

He had originally asked the deputy minister if the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) intended to “empower” the Royal Malaysian Navy’s (RMN) fleet where maritime operations were concerned.

In recent years, Pakatan Rakyat had questioned the government’s procurement of defence equipment.

These included salvos against the Scorpene submarine, RM9 billion for six Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), an estimated RM2 billion for a Mindef IT project, RM7.55 billion for armoured carriers and other matters.

Abdul Latiff also said that politicising defence matters ran the risk of revealing the country’s secrets and military readiness to “uncertain enemies”.

Criticising the government’s critics as “less intelligent”, he argued that Malaysia was a maritime country, and estimated that there was more than 600,000sq kilometres of sea area to cover (twice as much as Malaysia’s land mass).

This area, he said, was filled with gas and petroleum deposits, that Malaysia had to guard.

“When we bought the LCS, we didn’t do it for fun. We bought them because they have sonar (capabilities),” he said, adding that the price tag was more “competitive” than other countries.

In another query, Bachok MP (PAS) Nasharudin Mat Isa said that neither side of the political divide was willing to compromise on national security.

He then asked what Mindef’s procurement process was in upgrading military equipment, and pointed to Singapore’s AWACS (airborne warning and control system) upgrade.

Abdul Latiff then reassured the House that when it came to military procurement, Mindef did not operate out of the Finance Ministry’s bounds.