Jakarta – Gerindra Party executive and former vice presidential candidate Sandiaga Uno has acknowledged that several Gerindra members want him to run for the party chairmanship in the upcoming national congress.
He added, however, that whether he would run was in the hands of the current party chairman, Prabowo Subianto, who had held the position since 2014.
"It's true [that some members support me], but we leave the decision up to Pak Prabowo," Sandiaga said on Saturday as quoted by kompas.com.
In the meantime, Sandiaga said his focus was on performing his duties by gaining support for Gerindra from voters across the country.
The businessman-turned-politician first joined Gerindra in 2015 and successfully ran to be the party's nominee for Jakarta deputy governor two years later. He resigned from the party shortly before being announced as Prabowo's running mate in the presidential election in 2018, in an effort to avoid an all-Gerindra presidential ticket and to appease other parties in the coalition.
He returned to the party last year following the pair's loss in the presidential election.
Gerindra secretary-general Ahmad Muzani, however, said there would be no other chairmanship candidates in the upcoming congress, the place and time for which had yet to be decided.
"Insyaallah [God willing], only Pak Prabowo will run for the chairmanship. I think we all have agreed on it," Muzani said, as quoted by kompas.com.(vny)